Centra Gas Manitoba Inc., a subsidiary of Manitoba Hydro, is the primary distributor of

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...

Manitoba Manitoba ( ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population o ...

, serving the

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the province of Manitoba in Canada. It is centred on the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, near the longitudinal centre of North America. , Winnipeg had a city population of 749,6 ...

and surrounding area, including rural communities. The company had a

gas distribution The United Kingdom's National Transmission System (NTS) is the network of gas pipelines that supply gas to about forty power stations and large industrial users from natural gas terminals situated on the coast, and to gas distribution companies th ...

monopoly in Manitoba until 1991. Based in Winnipeg, it is regulated by the

Public Utilities Board of Manitoba In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

History

Centra Gas Manitoba initially received its provincial charter in 1953. It was privately owned by Vancouver-based Westcoast Energy from 1990 until 1999, when it was purchased by Manitoba Hydro. In the couple of years preceding the sale, Centra began speculative natural gas trading, leading to a loss which Manitoba utility regulators ruled could not be recovered by the company through a rate hike, forcing shareholders to absorb the loss. Moreover, as early as 1996, Centra had been working with Manitoba Hydro to reduce costs by combining forces on activities like power meter reading and billing. Centra Gas Manitoba was one of four units of Centra Gas Canada (known as ''ICG Utilities'' until 1991), the other three being Centra Gas Ontario, Centra Gas Alberta, and Centra Gas British Columbia, which '' in toto'' distributed natural gas to 500,000 Canadians and employed about 2000 people as of 1991. Each of the four component companies were regulated utilities, and at least two had un-regulated affiliate firms, such as Centra Energy Services as the affiliate of Centra Gas Manitoba. , Centra had about 240,000 residential and commercial customers. In fiscal 2003, total gas revenues were on 2,123 million cubic metres of gas.

References

{{Winnipeg Corporations Manitoba Hydro Companies based in Winnipeg Natural gas companies of Canada Canadian companies established in 1953