Stop Paying for Cryogenic Deliveries! A Gas Distributor's Guide to Huge Cost Savings

Keith Hall: Foreign

George Raderman: welcome to the High Pressure Podcast with me, George Raderman and me, Marie

Keith Hall: Williams, brought to you by Reliably Routerman,

George Raderman: bringing you industry news and trends, plus

Keith Hall: insightful conversations with industry leaders.

George Raderman: Let's get to today's show. Well, welcome to another episode of the High Pressure podcast. And today is kind of a pretty cool special day. We're going to have really a great opportunity with premier cryogenics. Keith Hall's here to talk to us and one of the questions I have, I've got a question that I have, uh, wondered. When I go down the street, you see a lot of bulk tanks at gas distributorships, Right. And those get filled by somebody. What I'd like to talk about a little bit is what is the moment a gas distributor can say, you know, what if I bought my own bulk tank truck and got my own deliveries and picked up, what's that about? And what I wanted to talk about because I think a lot of times there's a jumping off spot there that a gas distributor might say, well I get my bolt delivered to myself or maybe deliver customers. What are your thoughts on that?

Keith Hall: I think that's very cost savings for them as they start to grow. We try to help them. Oftentimes a small distributor will start out with a rehabbed older trailer that's completely rehabbed like new. Oh, the all pumping system. Then it's a little bit more economical for them to get in as they grow and build their business.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: Um, many times, you know, they're asking, they're paying a lot for someone else to deliver those molecules for them. So if they can do that themselves.

George Raderman: Yeah. So that is a cost savings. The MOD model is that you can go pick up your own gas or cryogenic and by doing that you get a lower cost. Mhm. So here's the scary thought for me. I've never had a bulk truck. Right. How do you, you know, how difficult is that? I mean, is it, is it, how difficult is the filling? You know, it seems like that'd be very complex and maybe a safety issue when you got a guy pulling up and he's gonna start pumping into a bulk tank.

Keith Hall: Well, you, safety is paramount. Of course. When someone buys a piece of equipment from us, they can come to our facility and we will give them hands on and classroom training. Oh, if they want us to go to their facility then of course we charge them for that service. But we can do four, eight people at a time at our facility. We um, can go to yours. I've even done classes much larger Than that the smaller size give more people more time for the hands on portion of the class. But oftentimes even if it's the receptionist or someone sitting in there, she's learning about cryogenics and what the company does and why and the background. And so some of those people maybe don't get their hands on but now they understand what the rest of the employees are talking about.

George Raderman: So that's really kind of a game changer because I did not think of that. The fact that you, you normally think okay, I'm going to buy something and I have to go down and figure out how to run this thing. I don't have somebody trained. Maybe I don't have the right. You know, we have never done this before. I don't mean me, but the gas distributorship. And so what you're saying is really that part of that package usually is, is training on how to actually operate the pumps and what the right procedures are. Now do you have, do you have to have like special certification if you're a person making deliveries of cryogenic? Does that take a special. I know it takes class A driver's license, but does that take other.

Keith Hall: Um, some people have hazardous. Depending on how it's placard, it doesn't have to be placard as hazardous. For instance, you have nitrogen orange 1977 placards or you have the diamond. So based on the UN diamond placards, I think that's what the CDL certification you have to have. But um, you know these guys, they're working and already with the liquid cylinders, they've already got a background. Most people, however, sometimes there's brand new people, they, they were just hired or driver just hired. We will start with anyone but I think when you're operating a trailer you don't want someone following here. You can do a checklist to check yourself, but if you're just following a recipe card, you don't know what you're doing. I like someone to understand the basics and why they're doing what they're doing and then if there's an issue, they can figure it out, they can trace a circuit. Uh, that's how you get liquid to the pump to cool it down and how that vapor gets out of the pump and back to the tank through the recirculation. I want them to understand the principles and why they're doing things. Uh, and then they'll be more safe. Ah, we want them to respect the cryogenic but not fear it.

George Raderman: So I think I know the answer to this but after they buy their first one and they get their first one on the road and they get that going, what do you typically find

Keith Hall: in five years along the way they be. So, okay, we started with nitrogen, but we've got a lot of argon customers or we have a lot of oxygen customers. So they'll expand into, you know, get another piece, ah, of equipment. Um, also they'll learn that, hey, maybe I want something different, you know, the way I've done it. And the newer equipment is lighter. You can haul more molecules than the older equipment. The rehabs, of course, trailers have gotten much, much lighter, seeing much higher capacity.

George Raderman: So you're suggesting somebody could start with a rehab trailer. Right. And then that gets them into entry a little lower cost. But the negative of that might be it can't haul as many molecules. Um, and just percentages wise, not real prices, but if you went from a, from a trailer that's been, you know, re hauled and all in good shape, compared to buying a brand new one, is it like 20% more? 40 more?

Keith Hall: Um, the difference between the two, it's probably 2/3 the cost of a brand new trailer.

George Raderman: Okay, two thirds. Okay. Yeah, so that is a good way to enter into it. And then there's different type of trailers, right? You guys typically have. We have nitrogen, but you also do hydrogen.

Keith Hall: Um, there's. There's hydrogen. We're building ethane and LNG right now. Trailers. We build CO2 trailers, but generally we have a stainless steel inner vessel line and we have an aluminum line.

George Raderman: Okay.

Keith Hall: So on the aluminum line, both the inner vessel and the outer vessel, or of course, aluminum, it's lighter, higher capacity. And. But with aluminum, we can only transport argon and nitrogen. Okay, so if we have a nitrogen trailer, let's say 8,400 gallons or something, it also has a full Trico in it. If you ever in the need the future, change the gas service and put argon, you wouldn't be able to fill it as near as full because argon is much more dense, much heavier. Yeah, but it gives you that flexibility. We also offer a model that is sized for argon, optimized. Now, the same thing in stainless steel will give you stainless steel, nitrogen or we call it a swing trailer, like a 7200. But it has Tricox for oxygen and, uh, and argon.

George Raderman: So, hey, gosh, you know what? For a lot of us, the industry, we hear the word Tricox, but would you mind describing what that exactly is?

Keith Hall: A Trico is just a device to tell you the Proper DOT fill level. If I were to poke a hole right here in this water bottle, as you fill this water bottle, you would stop when water started to leak out. That's the Trico, that hole, to tell you you're at the right level.

George Raderman: Okay.

Keith Hall: When we fill, if you have cold liquid, very cold, low pressure, the molecules are really close together. It's more dense.

George Raderman: Okay.

Keith Hall: Over time, as. As heat leaks into a cryogenic tank, the molecules move faster and farther apart, and the liquid level actually grows. If you had Superman vision and you filled it to this level and come back in three weeks, it's up to here. And you say, that's magic. But on scales, it still weighs the same. It's just like the sidewalk expands in the summer in Iran. But so DOT says, put that in there. So that if they fill it with 0psi, the coldest liquid, and it spits out there, then we know they're never going to overfill it, because if they filled it with warmer liquid, they just wouldn't get as many pounds in there before it spit.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: So you all may be familiar with your little, uh, propane bottle cylinders for your grills.

George Raderman: Sure.

Keith Hall: There's a little Trico on it as well. You open it up and it's spitting vapor out, cold vapor. But all of a sudden, when you see white liquid spit out, they stop the propane pump and indicates that it's filled to the proper level.

George Raderman: And you've done that so that you can maybe use that same trailer for nitrogen or maybe for argon by having it make those adjustments.

Keith Hall: Yes. So we'll have three. For instance, the penetration may go in one tube will extend down to here, the other one for oxygen down to here, and for argon all the way down to here. Because you fill it more than that.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: It's not. You could fill the trailer legally for dot, more than that. As far as fill density, but weight, you would be over. You'd be way over.

George Raderman: Yeah. And they have the scales you stop at, and those are not good things to get those kind of correct tickets right now. Hydrogen's been a big thing. Right. That's been a big, big market. Uh, if. What do you think about a distributor that says, I really want to get in the energy market with the hydrogen and doing their own hydrogen trailers?

Keith Hall: There are people talking about that, but you really need to have a good business plan. Uh, those trailers are very expensive, and you really need good training. Hydrogen is a very small molecule, hard to contain, and you need to be safe. There's a lot of things. For instance, the first time I knew to expect this, but I was amazed the first time I saw a transport trailer offloading, filling a bulk tank with liquid, uh, hydrogen. Dirty dishwater was just pouring, leaking out of the hose. That hose is leaking? Well, it's not. It was condensing the air on the outside. And it just turns liquefied air, oxygen to nitrogen. But then, uh, nitrogen, even though it boils at Maggie320 and oxygen at, uh, 297, I believe, so oxygen will condense out of the atmosphere first. So I always have a drip pan under our pressure builder to catch that. We don't want it dripping on asphalt.

George Raderman: Right.

Keith Hall: It could be flammable. But then nitrogen freezes first. So after a while the nitrogen will freeze and you have liquid oxygen just dripping off the hose and the piping. Um, and then finally they'll both freeze and then nothing's drifting off.

George Raderman: So it's a different beast. And you can almost always tell a hydrogen trailer for a couple of reasons, one of which is that drip pan there, you know that that's a, that's that due to the fact you don't want liquid oxygen hitting asphalt and hydrocarbon.

Keith Hall: Um, also, they're the largest trailers. It's so light that we volume out, cube out. We try to make the tank just as long and big and as we can to fit it, which is back

George Raderman: to the same thing in molecule size and the size of the container and all. I think the concept of being able to do your own deliveries is a pretty powerful one because also there's sometimes shortages. Right. And so people have shortages. You could go to where maybe to pick up gas. There's not a shortage. That could be a real advantage to having your own trailer.

Keith Hall: Exactly. To have more than one source.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: Um, just to, to jump a little bit.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: Guys will start with the high pressure cylinders and go to liquid cylinders. Now if they have the micro bulks and the bulks, they've got to pay someone else to bring them.

George Raderman: Right.

Keith Hall: But you know, there are also micro bulk trucks that, that deliver both with a small garden hose and with a fire hose to fill both tanks or cylinders. So that can really help you as a small guy starting out. If you have a piece of equipment like that, you can go fill your 1500 gallons and your 3000 gallon bulk tanks and fill all your micro bulks and even liquid cylinders.

George Raderman: Um, is that, is that a traditional trailer? Is that like a traditional class A driver? Big, big, big truck type?

Keith Hall: Okay. Yeah, it's a truck Mount a bobtail.

George Raderman: Okay. Oh, it's a bob tail. Okay.

Keith Hall: Yeah. Just like I think I saw a picture on one of your slides of one out here filling. So it's just a bobtail truck, but we also mount them on drop deck trailers or we make mini trailers half size for more maneuverability. We have had customers ask us to put that system on a full size trailer. Uh, because a lot of these are high pressure. Those, the pumps are usually higher pressure. We use, uh, for instance, on the Kiso Top 190, it puts out about. If we build the pressure in the truck up to 40 psi, we can put out 500 psi discharge pressure for nitrogen.

George Raderman: Great.

Keith Hall: So we have to slow the pump down for argon and oxygen. So those are really great for filling micro bulks. And the micro bulk sizes are getting larger, Starting to encroach and overlap small bulk tanks. But now for a regular trailer, um, usually we're trying to fill into a tank that's maybe 250 psi m AWP.

George Raderman: Okay.

Keith Hall: Higher than that, many times the customer has to blow it down and lose molecules.

George Raderman: Yeah. Because like one of the things like the Arctic fox behind us here is a 6000. Literally. And now we have an 8100 liter. Right. So they are getting kind of crossing

Keith Hall: over the bolt tank over 2,000 gallons.

George Raderman: And this is 500 psi. And you're right, a lot of times people need to drop the pressure. Uh, one of the things we design on this is that the pressure builds very quickly back up to drop the fill it. But you, you have a pump where you can pump at 500 psi.

Keith Hall: Yes. Um, and a lot of these used to be just top fill only. So when you're raining fresh, cold liquid down in that. The vapor that's been in there. Yeah, it's been in there longer. It's warmer. So that cold vapor raining, uh, cold liquid raining through that warm vapor condenses the vapor into droplets and the pressure drops.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: So if your customer needs to maintain 400 psi, you can open the bottom fill as well and maintain that pressure. So as liquid rises, it's like a piston compressing.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: And maintain that customer so you don't shut the customer down.

George Raderman: Yeah, that's a fantastic point. Is one of the reasons on ours we have both top fill and bottom fill. Because you're right, somebody's in their manufacturer running their laser. They don't want to stop running your laser while you're filling. Ideally. Yeah.

Keith Hall: And. And have to wait when you're done filling till the pressure builds.

George Raderman: It Back up, right? Yeah, yeah. So little differences. So 500 psi, that's, that's, you know, it didn't used to be that way 15 years ago. You know, you had to, you're willing to what, 180 psi or 250 psi was kind of a.

Keith Hall: Kind of 250, 300. That's kind of standard for transport trailers. Yeah. So now there are transport trailers that are pressure off, maybe they're 60 or 90 psi for pressure off. Um, but they're heavier, tank more, you're hauling more steel than you are. So most.

George Raderman: When you say pressure off, would you explain pressure offload?

Keith Hall: So you turn on the pressure builder, take liquid out of the bottom of the tank, run it through the aluminum Starfin coils and reintroduce that pressure on top, uh, to push down and push that liquid out.

George Raderman: Okay.

Keith Hall: So you have to blow your customer down and build pressure here. And you get that differential pressure, 25 or 50 psi and you can push that way. But most people use a pump. Now there's electric driven pumps, uh, there's a lot of those used for LNG stations and things like that. Electric driven in Central and South America, Europe, everybody uses electricity and the customer site has an electrical outlet and you just plug into the customer and offload. But here we, we can use um, a Kubota engine, for example, a pony motor, um, slung under the belly. And then it'll have a belt and pulleys and drive shaft segments down the side of the trailer to the back with another belt and pulley set up to the pump to turn the pump. That's very, um, it's very reliable. Um, you're, it's very efficient. Um, there's a lot of those out there advantages having that engine under there is you can pull it with any tractor you want. If you have a tractor today that you're pulling high pressure cylinders or liquid cylinders. Yeah, you can use it to pull that. Um, but then as you grow, you may want to have lighten, uh, up and get rid of the weight of that engine. So you can have a pump that's hydraulic driven. Now we can put a PTO on your tractor and a hydraulic wet kit. And when you back under the trailer and connect your airlines and connect up, you also connect up the hydraulic lines. And now that can power. Yeah. Or we can have the Kubota engine under there still and have hydraulic and run hydraulic to the back.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: So there's electric tractor, hydraulic pony motor. Hydraulic pony motor, yeah. Jack shaft driven and pressure off.

George Raderman: Well, uh, so here's a big question. I think a lot of people have not really had a fleet of bulk delivery trailers or trucks maintenance. So like let's just say is it so many hours of operation that you need to have maintenance on your trailers or pump maintenance? What would be the typical 12 month maintenance that somebody would expect to have if they had a trailer making deliveries?

Keith Hall: Well, it depends on what system you have. For instance, just with the jack shaft driven Kubota, you would follow the Kubota engine manufacturer on changing the fuel filter and oil. And oil filter. But along the side we have a schedule that you will want to grease the U joints and the slip yolks that you would grease those and check the tension on your belt. Tight. Very simple. You know, anyone can do that. And it's very reliable when it comes to hydraulic. You know after a certain time frame you're going to have to change your fluid, make sure you don't get moisture in it and you change your filters. Um, make sure you have no hydraulic leaks.

George Raderman: And those are, those are fairly straightforward typical truck maintenance type of items. Right. That's not a specialty.

Keith Hall: Yes.

George Raderman: Need in the cryogenic side. Now on the cryogenic side, is that correct?

Keith Hall: Yes, that's correct.

George Raderman: Okay. Now on the cryogenic side you've got all these valves and all these reliefs and all this good stuff back there.

Keith Hall: Yeah, but there are uh, good hirose valves but they are from Ratterman company.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: So you don't have to worry. Those type of things you need to take care of as they happen. I'm not like get things out of uh, uh, out of hand. Like I tell drivers, if you're keeping it uh, clean and nice, I can tell that your system's going to last longer. So if there's little leaky valve packing we teach them how to just snug it down but not tighten it too tight. Else now you can't turn the handle or the emergency shutoff won't close. Um, if there's a flange leaking we teach them how to crisscross, bring that flange down uniformly parallel together. Okay, so those are just little simple maintenance things.

George Raderman: Um, so let me ask you the question this way. I'm a dispatcher and I've got a driver that's going to go out in our bulk delivery and he's going to go out for eight hours, make deliveries and come back in a typical week like that. What amount of real maintenance would he have to do?

Keith Hall: Uh, he probably shouldn't have in simple week, shouldn't have any maintenance he'll do his inspection in the morning and check everything if he's got a pony motor's fuel level and check his water and, you know, just. Just the checks. But he shouldn't have to do anything normally. Okay. Um, your regular maintenance guy can get it every couple of months or quarter.

George Raderman: Yeah. And then when would be the time you bring it in for, like, a rehab? When you see people bring into your shop a trailer for rehab, what are, like, the typical two or three reasons?

Keith Hall: Well, we see them coming in nine months to 20 years, but typical reasons, um, low vacuum. It didn't have a good vacuum, or tend to redo the vacuum or it was in an accident, those type of things. Um, the pump seal is leaking. You know, if we teach the guy how to properly operate the pump. I think we discussed that in your training schools. Right. It'll last longer and you don't have to deal with that because that'll be the number one cost and downtime on a. That you would normally expect to see is have to replace. Get the pump swapped out. Yeah, they have rebuilt pumps. You send yours back and they send you one.

George Raderman: Which sounds like a nightmare. I mean, that sounds like. That's a pretty.

Keith Hall: It's not too bad. Um, I mean, even you and I could change them, George. There's four bolts to hold the pump down and undo the two flanges and undo the.

George Raderman: We would definitely videotape that.

Keith Hall: Podcast the hydraulic or the belt.

George Raderman: I'd probably have a lot of oil all over me by the time I got done.

Keith Hall: But, yeah, it's just. It's downtime and cost that you're losing. So most small companies could do that themselves. Swap a pump out, call up the pump guy, he'll send you a new one. Swap it out and send him back your old one.

George Raderman: Okay. So it's pretty straightforward.

Keith Hall: Yeah.

George Raderman: So If I bought 10 trailers from

Keith Hall: you, I'll give you a good discount

George Raderman: and put them all out in the field. How often would you expect to hear a phone call from me? I got 10 of these things out. Making deliveries and filling both tanks.

Keith Hall: Uh, not very often. No. It's, you know, if somebody who's established and already knows what they're doing, but from the little guys just starting out. Yeah, we tell them, call me anytime, day or night. If you're in a blind call. Okay. Sometimes I'll get a call that we've trained their main operator and their backup driver, but they didn't have their backup driver go out and ride with their main driver or go out in the yard one Friday afternoon and just spend an hour running and filling and practicing. So six months later, he calls me and says, hey, so and so's out sick today. I've got to do this. Could you walk me through it again? And I'm happy to do that, but we try to give people and get them hands on and then encourage them with do it two or three times so you don't forget what you're doing and why you're doing what you're doing.

George Raderman: And one of the reasons I'm asked the questions the way I am, I go to a lot of gas distributors and I reset that leap, right. That leap from, you know, getting it filled by somebody else to where you start filling yourself. And there's a little mystery there, like, what is that really going to entail? And what's, what's, what's. You can hear some of the horror stories, like, oh, my gosh, my pump went down. I got to get my pump replaced. I can't make any deliveries now. How do people typically deal with that? It was a very short amount of time that they would be down.

Keith Hall: Like, like I say, most time, if your pump starts to leak, you can see ahead of time and get planned for that a few days.

George Raderman: Okay.

Keith Hall: But if it goes right out, you could call these most of this. The pumps we use, they keep on the shelf in a rebuild program.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: And so they have. They'll send you one. They don't even wait for you to send yours. They send you one, you put it in and send yours back. And then they'll rebuild that and charge you the bill to get it back into that same rebuilt condition.

George Raderman: Okay. So that's one of the ways.

Keith Hall: So sometimes just overnight. So you may be down two days at the most, but hopefully you're only down two half days or something or.

George Raderman: Right. And most of the parts I know from our experience, you can almost point to the two or three valve rebuild kits you want to keep on hand. So if it's happening, you can just make a quick change out and you resolve the issue.

Keith Hall: Yes.

George Raderman: Uh, and that's what we have found with most folks that are having their own transport. So there's a certain amount of set parts, reliefs, whatever it might be, and that's pretty consistent.

Keith Hall: Yeah. And keep those on hand. Yeah, we train them. It's just like a fuse. You don't slip a.22 bullet in in place of a fuse. You don't put a.30amp in place of a 5. Same thing on those line reliefs. You don't put a, a larger one on than, than the one that's supposed to be there. It's on the P&ID you can look on the relief valve.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: But many of them are very standard and you can stock stock some of those, keep them on hand.

George Raderman: And one thing is really uh, I think good thing to say is whether when you're making deliveries, uh, all your bulk tank customers, if it's your bulk tanks, it's five years. And uh, one of the new things we're doing here is we're doing ASME retesting, recertification of all the bulk type pressure leaves. You know, so that's, that's something that sometimes people sell new tanks but you know it's that five year rotation and making sure those are reviewed. And you guys do that at your shop.

Keith Hall: Yeah. So related to that on the trailer side, if it's an dot MC M338 trailer. So that's a we built to that code. If it's flammable, LNG or ethane, it has to be MC338 or hydrogen. Now Dot says if you're going to operate over the road of that trailer under 25.3 psi, we don't care. So CGA has a specification CGA 341 and most people build their nitrogen oxygen argon to CGA 341. Occasionally a customer will say no, I want it to be MC338. Um, and we'll do that. One advantage is they have cross border with Canada. For instance. In Canada there's reciprocity. So MC331CO2 and MC338 cryogenic trailers can cross the border back and forth. But if you have an MC338 then there's dot required testing, pressure tests and inspections and annual visual inspections annual. But with CGA that doesn't exist. But we hope you yourself are looking at it more frequently than once a year. Um, we can do those tests on uh, the MC338s but you could also get your own vacuum meter and measure your vacuum once a year and just make sure you still got a good vacuum. That vacuum is so critical.

George Raderman: Right. We know one of the great things about the industry. I think all the gas distributors are so proactive and so safety focused. That the very thing you talked about like having your own meter, double checking it, having the walk around doing those reviews and being proactive. Like you're saying seeing a little seek, a uh, leak or maybe seeing a little bit of vapor tells you Something is coming and deal with it before it happens.

Keith Hall: Definitely.

George Raderman: And again, I brought this up because I think one of the concerns folks may have without the experience is like, how much downtime will I have if I have a trailer? What will. Amount of other support support will I need to have with that? So I appreciate you giving the feedback on that. Uh, and it's probably like you said, it's probably a lot, like a lot of things once we start doing liquid dewars or you have other kind of, you know, micro bulks, you get to know the product and it's, it's.

Keith Hall: You're not afraid of it. Yeah, it's just in a different application.

George Raderman: So at the end of the day, you get your own trailer. You've got the ability to go where you want to go to pick up your product and the ability when you want to make a delivery of your product.

Keith Hall: Exactly. One thing I think you allude to sooner was operating at the trailer. So some fill plants you'll go to, they will fill it for you. Put on the scales, they do fill it for you, others you have to fill it, but they'll train you the first time on their procedures and how to do it. We cover it in our class how to fill it. But wherever the fill plant that you fill it at, so you won't have to worry about that, that'll be taken care of.

George Raderman: And the other thing is by having there's been some shortages depending on certain geographies and have the ability to go to another geography and get product can be a real plus as well.

Keith Hall: Yes. Another thing that would help you too is sometimes the majors, they don't want to have to back in and get all these little 1500s or maybe 3000 accounts. And you might can pick those up oftentimes with the micro boat delivery trucks, they grab those accounts and they're happy to give those away. People will give those to you so you can pick up a few more accounts just because you're hauling your own and you're not afraid of making those little deliveries.

George Raderman: Yeah. There could be some tough spots to make deliveries at times, right?

Keith Hall: Yeah.

George Raderman: Yeah. That's fantastic. Thank you so much. So, Keith, if you're visiting a gaseous driver ship, what are kind of like the top signs you say you guys should probably be looking into getting your own transports, your own cryogenic bulk transports. What would be those telltale red flags for you?

Keith Hall: Well, that's a good question. Most of these guys started out with high pressure cylinders, then liquid cylinders. But if they're getting into micro bulk, you know and then into, into the more bulks. If you kind of say how often are they making deliveries now? You know, if you're having to deliver every few days, you may as well do it yourself. You know, if it's once a week or twice a month then maybe, maybe you don't need to get into that yet or get your trailer and now go find some more business for that trailer.

George Raderman: So maybe the way to look at that is if you have uh, 10 volt tanks out there in service. Uh, is it 10 bulk tanks, 20 volt tanks depending on the gas. Let's say they're all nitrogen to get some synergy to it. But there's some spot that becomes just like is it you know once, once a day kind of a delivery?

Keith Hall: Ah, you know, to go around now you, you have telemetry and things and can map your routes.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: But yes, part of this also is now if you get a trailer you're not going to have to haul so many liquid cylinders. You can free that up. There's, they're heavier, you're making more trips. So now you can go with a larger micro bulk or a bulk. Now. Um, uh, and so you, you may not be delivering bulk today but you can look at accounts where it would make much more sense. You would save delivery time and trips and fees and wear on your truck to, to size them up. Take a size up and you know, and what's your frequency? You want to be out filling?

George Raderman: Okay. Well you know we love to hear Keith about success stories and you're in a situation where you can watch folks that have jumped into something and done it and then they, you know, you have, you have a couple success stories you, you could tell.

Keith Hall: I'll tell you one that comes to mind. I was just recently ah. A customer asked me to go back and do some training. So this is like the third time I've gone back to do a day. Cryogenic hands on and classroom training.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: Because they have a new operator. Well what they had done, they started out with one rehab trailer for nitrogen. Then they had a lot of argon customers. So now they got a rehab trailer for argon. Well now while I was talking to them now they're got the confidence and the know what to do and now find a business. They're thinking about buying a new optimized nitrogen trailer home or.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: And um, they're thinking the other ones, it may be having problems and stuff like that. Um, so you know, they want to get rid of it and move up. So I think people are just a little bit hesitant at first, but once they understand that, hey, not only what I'm doing right now, but I can size these customers up to bigger and do it. Plus I can go out and grab some more customers and I might be able to. For the other guy, I might be able to go fill for him now as well.

George Raderman: Yeah, that's fantastic. And I like the idea too, is the fact you said point out you might start with nitrogen, which may be depending on your customer base, maybe heavy nitrogen, maybe heavy CO2 or heavy argon. Whichever those are, you start with that, the numbers make sense, then you, you grow from there. Well, the goal of this particular podcast was really the to look at the jumping off spot. You know, for a gas distributor that's not today currently using cryogenic transports. You know, I think that you get a wonderful job of explaining where those opportunities could be and, and maybe demystifying a little bit what might be some concerns folks have. So I really appreciate you taking the time today. Um, you know, Premier does a wonderful job and I appreciate the time you took to come over here today as well as many other times of training. And also I thank you very much for that.

Keith Hall: No, uh, we thank you and for the great service we get from Ratterman. So I was happy to do it.

George Raderman: Yeah.

Keith Hall: Well, thank you.

George Raderman: Thanks for watching. Stay up to date with the latest news in the gas and welding industry by clicking on the subscribe button and

Keith Hall: check out one of our other videos to learn more. Find out more about reliably radterman, uh, @rmiorder.com.