“Here’s an interesting one,” Shana said, reading aloud from the classifieds. “Absolute Bankruptcy Auction. West Shore Oil Co. liquidation.”

“West Shore Oil?” I said. “As in, the place that delivers our fuel?”

Apparently so.

Shana went on to list the vehicles, equipment, and inventory that would be on the block. There was digging equipment, stainless steel tanker trucks, new and used propane tanks. In short, everything you’d need to start a business as an energy supplier — or need to liquidate to shut one down.

This was a big surprise. Of all the companies you’d expect to fall victim to a lousy economy, a fuel supplier would be pretty far down the list. Heating oil and propane in a northern climate aren’t exactly luxuries. Granted, a lot of homes in Perry County – including ours – boast a wood stove or two. Oil and propane aren’t the only games in town. Electricity is a fairly popular energy for home heating, especially in hard times. We’ve known neighbors to shrink down their lives in cold weather, especially when the cost of heating oil was high, and keep to one or two rooms warmed by an electric space heater.

For that matter, I know one or two thrifty souls who haunt auctions and estate sales, looking to score the odd ton of coal.

Some old farmhouses, like ours, which grew up piecemeal over the last two centuries, take the smorgasboard approach. Our heating system has representatives from all the fuel groups: an oil-fired furnace; a cast-iron propane stove; a wood-fired stove; and electrical space heaters.

Of course, we use each of these elements sparingly, and some almost never. I don’t think we’ve turned on a space heater in two or three years. We avoid the old oil furnace, which sounds like a helicopter spinning up its rotors in the basement. We do like the wood-fired stove, but it does take some tending. The propane-fired stove, which looks old but is really a modern Chinese knock-off, is our go-to heating system. It’s cheap to operate, and its heat is drawn up the stairs and spread around by natural convection, so one little heater pretty much heats the whole house.

Of course, it does require, uh, propane. Which brings us back to the West Shore Oil company. Propane was one of the few regular deliveries we had on St. Peters Church Road. I liked the driver, a very friendly man named Pat, which, as I learned was a nickname for the much more exotic “Pasquale.” Pat wasn’t just a driver. When we had a brainstorm about connecting our little Weber grill to the main propane tank, Pat was the mechanic who came out and did the work. He was careful and methodical, exactly the qualities you want in a man whose work stands between you and a potentially house-leveling fireball.

I’ll miss Pat. Aside from being handy with a wrench, he was interesting to talk to. Gas work was his day job, but you could tell that his heart was in the horse farm he managed with his wife.

In fact, if anyone can put me in touch with Pat, I’d appreciate it. I’d like to hear how the horses are coming along. And I wouldn’t mind getting an insider’s account of the last days at Wesco.

The end of West Shore Oil shouldn’t have come as a complete surprise. If I’d been paying better attention to local doings back in April, I would have known that the company was briefly shuttered for what were described as “phone and computer problems.”

I guess the problems ran a little deeper, though.

My sympathies go out to the customers who purchased service plans from the company, or pre-paid for fuel to lock in a good price. They may not be completely out of luck, but I wouldn’t want to be standing behind creditors like the First National Bank of Marysville or the Wachovia Bank. Bankruptcy proceedings tend to reward big players who can afford teams of lawyers.

It shouldn’t surprise me that businesses – even seemingly essential ones like fuel companies or grocery stores – fail. That’s the nature of dynamic capitalism, where markets punish the weak and reward the strong.

But it is disconcerting to call your oil company and hear the recording that says the number is no longer in service.

No longer in service.

Chilling words for any business.

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 04 November 2010

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com