Piedmont Forklifts: Service, Sales, Rentals — Woman Owned, Spartanburg, South Carolina
It did. But not evenly, and if you run propane, the worst of it is already behind you. Forklift operating costs in 2026 have been a story of two very different fuels, and the fleets making capital decisions right now are mostly reacting to the wrong one.
What Actually Happened to Propane
Propane is the workhorse fuel for indoor internal-combustion lift trucks. Its wholesale benchmark is the Mont Belvieu, Texas spot price, and the weekly EIA series carried by the St. Louis Fed tells the year plainly:
- Week ending January 16: $0.596 per gallon — the low for the year
- Week ending March 6: $0.702 — the first real jump
- Week ending May 15: $0.843 — the 2026 peak, about 41 percent above January
- Week ending July 10: $0.693 — down roughly 18 percent from the peak
So propane rose hard, topped out in mid-May, and has spent two months giving it back. As of the most recent week, it sits about 13 percent above where the year opened. Uncomfortable. Not a crisis.
Now set that against diesel, which climbed roughly 62 percent between early January and early April and did not retreat the same way — the numbers are in The Forklift Technician Shortage Is Setting Your Service Rate. Same shock. Wildly different outcomes.
Why Propane Didn’t Follow Diesel Down the Hole
This is the part most fleet managers never learn, and it explains everything above.
Diesel is a crude oil product. When crude moves, diesel moves. Propane is different: EIA explains that propane comes from both crude oil refining and natural gas processing — and that output from natural gas processing now runs about seven times that from petroleum refining.
In other words, most American propane is a domestic natural gas byproduct, not an oil product. EIA notes propane spot prices tend to sit between Brent crude and Henry Hub natural gas on an energy basis, which is exactly what the 2026 data shows: propane got tugged upward by crude, but anchored downward by gas.
Your propane fleet has a partial hedge built into it. Nobody sold it to you that way. It’s just how the molecule gets made.
If You Run Propane
Don’t make a capital decision on a spike that’s already unwinding. Fleet managers who priced out an electric conversion at the May peak were solving for $0.843 propane. It’s $0.693 now.
That’s not an argument against electrification — plenty of good reasons exist for it. It’s an argument against using a two-month price excursion as the basis for a ten-year asset decision. Propane is also mostly a winter heating fuel, per EIA, so a cold winter pulls inventories down and prices up. Some of what you saw is seasonal machinery, not a permanent repricing.
If You Run Diesel
Your exposure is real and it’s direct. Diesel tracks crude with no natural gas ballast underneath it, which is why it climbed further and stayed up. Yard trucks, rough-terrain lifts, anything outdoors on diesel — that cost increase is currently structural, not seasonal.
It’s also worth knowing that OSHA treats diesel, propane, gasoline, and electric trucks as genuinely different classes of machine with different safeguards, not as interchangeable fuel options — eleven designations in total, which we unpack in One Fleet, Six Brands, Four Fuel Types: The All-Makes Repair Gap. Switching fuels isn’t a fuel decision. It’s a compliance and service decision too.
The Number That Actually Matters
Cost per run hour, not cost per gallon.
Fuel is one input. The others are the parts that fail because nobody caught them: hydraulic leaks that burn extra engine load, a mistimed engine running rich, tires that add rolling resistance, filters nobody changed. A poorly maintained IC lift can waste more fuel than the entire 2026 propane increase — and unlike Mont Belvieu, that part sits entirely inside your control. It also determines whether the truck passes the checks OSHA expects before each shift, covered in What OSHA Actually Requires Before a Forklift Moves.
This is the unglamorous case for planned maintenance. You cannot hedge Mont Belvieu. You can stop paying for avoidable inefficiency on a machine you already own. Piedmont builds PM schedules around run hours and environment at $120 per hour with a $90 flat trip charge — but whoever you use, the point stands: the fuel market isn’t the lever. The machine is.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did propane rise in 2026?
The Mont Belvieu spot benchmark went from $0.596 per gallon the week ending January 16 to a peak of $0.843 the week ending May 15 — about 41 percent. It has since fallen to $0.693 as of the week ending July 10.
Why didn’t propane rise as much as diesel?
Because propane isn’t primarily an oil product. EIA reports that U.S. propane output from natural gas processing runs roughly seven times that from petroleum refining, so propane prices track natural gas as well as crude. Diesel tracks crude alone.
Should I switch my propane fleet to electric because of fuel costs?
Not on the basis of 2026 fuel prices alone. Propane peaked in May and has given back most of the increase. Electrification may make sense for other reasons — emissions, indoor air quality, noise, total cost of ownership — but a receding price spike is weak evidence.
Is the propane price increase seasonal?
Partly. EIA notes most U.S. propane is consumed as a winter heating fuel, and cold winters draw down inventories, which pushes prices up. Some of the early-2026 move reflects that pattern rather than a permanent shift.
What most affects forklift operating cost besides fuel?
Maintenance condition. Hydraulic leaks, poor engine tuning, worn tires, and clogged filters all raise consumption on an internal-combustion lift — and unlike commodity prices, those are within your control.
About the Author
Ada Wallace is President of Piedmont Forklifts in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she handles customer relations and day-to-day operations and speaks with service customers directly. She brings more than 24 years in the warehousing and manufacturing support industries, holds a B.S. from Clemson University, and has attended Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She works alongside Vice President Bill Wallace, who brings more than 38 years of industry experience — together, 62-plus combined years. Piedmont Forklifts is ISO 9001:2015 certified and holds WBENC (Women’s Business Enterprise National Council) and WOSB (Woman Owned Small Business) certifications. She can be reached at awallace@piedmontforklifts.com or 864.906.3263.
Piedmont Forklifts
Piedmont Forklifts runs forklift service, sales, and rentals from 1091 Barnwell Road in Spartanburg, South Carolina, covering Spartanburg, Greenville, Anderson, Cherokee, Laurens, and Union counties.
Our Services Include:
- Forklift Service and Repair — Planned maintenance built around your run hours; gas, diesel, propane, and electric; $120/hour labor, $90 flat trip charge, no upcharge fees
- Forklift Rentals — Electric sit-down riders with chargers included, weekly and monthly terms
Watching your cost per run hour? Contact Piedmont — you’ll reach Ada or Bill directly.
Works Cited
U.S. Energy Information Administration. “Propane Prices: Mont Belvieu, Texas [WPROPANEMBTX].” Retrieved from FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, 15 July 2026, fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WPROPANEMBTX. Accessed 16 July 2026.
“STEO Between the Lines: EIA Now Publishes a Short-Term Forecast of the Propane Spot Price.” Short-Term Energy Outlook, U.S. Energy Information Administration, 12 Sept. 2023, www.eia.gov/outlooks/steo/report/BTL/2023/09-propane/article.php. Accessed 16 July 2026.
