Natural gas, sometimes referred to a conventional natural gas or fossil gas to distinguish it from renewable natural gas, is a naturally-occurring, methane-rich gas extracted from the ground and used as a fuel for heating and transportation.

The term natural gas sometimes also refers to the blend of conventional natural gas and biomethane delivered in gas utilities’ pipelines.

The BC government’s Carbon Tax Act defines natural gas as:

“natural gas, whether or not the natural gas (a)occurs naturally or results from processing, or (b)contains gas liquids, but does not include refinery gas”

and defines refinery gas as:

“gas for use in an oil refinery that is produced as a result of distillation, cracking, reforming or other oil refining processes.”

The BC government levies the carbon tax on natural gas. Starting April 1, 2022, the carbon tax rate on natural gas was $0.0979 per cubic metre, or $2.50 per gigajoule, rising to $0.324 per cubic metre, or $8.26 per gigajoule, by April 1, 2030.

Use in BC

FortisBC Energy Inc. (FEI), the largest supplier of natural gas in BC, delivered 230,671,000 gigajoules (GJ) (230.7 petajoules) of natural gas to 1,067,191 customers in 2022, according to its annual report to the BCUC.

FEI estimates its average use per customer as follows:

• Residential customer: 60 GJ per year;
• Small commercial customer: 293 GJ per year;
• Large commercial customer: 3,253 GJ per year;
• Industrial (general firm service): 18,542 GJ per year.

Pacific Northern Gas (PNG) delivered 3,058 terajoules (TJ) (3.1 petajoules) of natural gas to its end-use customers in 2022, and an additional 1.9 petajoules to transportation customers, according to its annual report to the BCUC.