What are PADDs?

A PADD is a Petroleum Administration for Defense District, one of five regions the US government has grouped states into for petroleum data since World War II. There are five of them: PADD 1 is the East Coast, PADD 2 the Midwest, PADD 3 the Gulf Coast, PADD 4 the Rocky Mountains and PADD 5 the West Coast. EIA reports propane prices, stocks and supply by these districts, so knowing the map is how you read a regional propane number.

Where the districts came from

The name is a wartime relic. During World War II the Petroleum Administration for War, created by executive order in 1942, used these five districts to ration gasoline. The agency was abolished in 1946, but the Defense Production Act of 1950 created a successor, the Petroleum Administration for Defense, and the district lines stuck. EIA has used them ever since to group the states for petroleum supply data. It also defines two more, PADDs 6 and 7, for US territories, which never appear in the propane figures on this site. The districts were never redrawn for markets, which is part of why they are broad and occasionally awkward.

PADD 1, the East Coast

PADD 1 is the East Coast: 17 states from Maine to Florida plus the District of Columbia. Because of its large population, EIA splits it into three sub-districts, and both the weekly price survey and the weekly stocks report carry each one separately:

• PADD 1A, New England: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont.
• PADD 1B, the Central Atlantic: Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
• PADD 1C, the Lower Atlantic: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

For propane, PADD 1 is a winter draw region that leans on fuel moved in from elsewhere, and it reads the highest residential prices of the four districts EIA's weekly survey covers. The split matters most in New England: in the last survey week of the 2025-26 season, March 30, 2026, New England residential propane read $3.766 a gallon against a national average of $2.674. About 2.1 million East Coast homes heat mainly with propane, a third of the US total, per the Census Bureau's 2020-2024 American Community Survey, and in New England the share is 7.8 percent of all homes. The East Coast price page carries the district's weekly residential and wholesale prices.

PADD 2, the Midwest

PADD 2 is the Midwest: 15 states from Ohio west to the Dakotas and south to Oklahoma and Tennessee. They are Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

For propane it is the center of household demand. About 2.5 million Midwest homes heat mainly with propane, 40 percent of the national total and 7.4 percent of all homes in the district, the highest share of the five districts, per the same Census survey. It is also Conway country, home to the inland trading hub at Conway, Kansas, and to the fall crop-drying demand that fires grain dryers after harvest. The district's weekly prices are on the Midwest price page.

PADD 3, the Gulf Coast

PADD 3 is the Gulf Coast: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. It is where the US propane market physically sits. Mont Belvieu, the salt-dome storage hub east of Houston whose daily price is the US wholesale benchmark, is inside PADD 3, and in the week ended October 2, 2026 the Gulf Coast held 68.7 million of the 107.8 million barrels of propane and propylene in US primary storage, about 64 percent.

New Mexico's place in the district is historical: the map follows old refining districts, and EIA still lists New Mexico as a refining district of its own inside PADD 3. Retail demand is small next to the stored volume. About 700,000 Gulf Coast homes heat mainly with propane, 3.9 percent of the district's homes. The Gulf Coast price page and the Gulf Coast stocks page track the district week by week.

PADD 4, the Rocky Mountains

PADD 4 is the Rocky Mountain district: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming. It is the smallest district by propane households, about 268,000 homes, but at 5.5 percent of all homes its reliance on propane runs above the national 4.9 percent. Four of its five states are in the weekly price survey (Wyoming is not), and the district's prices are on the Rocky Mountain price page. For stocks, EIA's weekly report has no separate PADD 4 line: it combines PADD 4 and PADD 5 into one Rockies-and-West-Coast figure, a row on the US inventories page.

PADD 5, the West Coast

PADD 5 is the West Coast: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. None of its seven states is in EIA's weekly residential propane survey, so there is no PADD 5 price line. Together they hold about 716,000 homes that heat mainly with propane, 3.1 percent of the district's homes and more than PADD 3, and the US price page lists each state's count. Nationally, 38 states are in the weekly survey; the state price map shows which.

Worked example: why the same fuel prices differently by district

PADD-level prices diverge, sometimes sharply. In the last survey week of the 2025-26 season, March 30, 2026, residential propane averaged $3.596 a gallon in PADD 1, $2.929 in PADD 3 and $2.184 in PADD 2. The first survey week of the 2026-27 season, October 5, 2026, kept the same order: $3.649, $2.919 and $2.049. The tables below carry each district's latest week.

In both weeks the Gulf Coast, where the hub sits and most of the propane is stored, was not the cheapest place to buy it at retail; the Midwest was. Retail price is set by local delivery economics, market structure and heating demand, not by proximity to a production hub, which is why the district a customer sits in tells you more about their bill than the national average does.

The Fill Line is a free weekly read of the public propane numbers: the state price survey from October through March, and stocks, the Mont Belvieu spot and the weekly supply balance year round. One email a week on what moved.