KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The cold temperatures hitting Kansas City this week have a lot of folks turning up their heat. For
Inergy, a metro propane company, that has led to some impressive growth over the past 12-years.
“We're in two primary businesses,” explains Inergy President and CEO John Sherman. “We're in the propane marketing and distribution business, and we're in the energy midstream businesses.”
Inergy was formed in 1996 as a regional propane distributor. The company has grown and diversified ever since -- acquiring additional retail propane operations along the way. A small portion of their business is commercial, but the bulk of it, or 70 percent, serves residential.
“In most of these applications, we'd love to have the whole house,” says Sherman. “In a lot of the cases, it might just be the furnace, it might be, they may use it for cooking, they may use if for hot water, you'll see the gas logs.”
In 2003, Inergy shifted gears -- diversifying into the midstream energy sector. That opened the doors to natural gas storage and the transport business. Their Kansas City headquarters spearhead the supply, logistics and marketing -- keeping the fuel supply moving.
Looking across a large office busy with phones and computers, Inergy Propane President and COO Phillip Elbert watches the activity.
“Some of these people are literally scheduling propane deliveries for tomorrow across the United States,” Elbert said. “Sometimes, they might be helping procure supplies for next winter.”
As they move further into storage and transportation, Inergy is about to complete a major expansion at a newly acquired refining facility on the west coast, which will triple their business there.
“We are really close to turning the lights on in that expansion process. We've been under construction for over a year and a half,” Elbert said.
Today, Inergy is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ, continually looking at expansion and diversification.
“The propane industry remains very fragmented,” Sherman said. “Despite all of our growth, we only have about 3 1/2 percent of the US market today. We are the 5th largest in the US.”
