South Bruce municipalities encouraged by OEB decision, says Kincardine mayor

The Municipality of Kincardine and its partners in the natural gas project, Huron-Kinloss and Arran Elderslie, are pleased that the Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has made its decision on the generic hearing that the three mayors participated in back in May.

"We were very encouraged with some of the rulings and the new process laid out in the decision," said Kincardine mayor Anne Eadie. "At this point, the three municipalities need to examine the decision of the OEB in more detail and South Bruce will have more to share with the public in the next week or two."

In February of this year, the South Bruce municipalities signed a Municipal Franchise Agreement with EPCOR Utilities Inc., giving it the right to distribute natural gas within the three municipalities.

At the Kincardine council meeting Wednesday night (Nov. 16), Eadie announced that EPCOR is purchasing the natural gas distribution assets of Ontario’s Natural Resource Gas Ltd. (NRG).

NRG distributes gas to more than 8,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the rural southwestern Ontario counties of Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford and Norfolk. The transaction is expected to close in about six months following OEB approval.

It will add $10-million to EPCOR's approximately $2-billion annual revenue, and give the company a foothold in Ontario, where it has applied to develop a municipal franchise agreement to distribute natural gas in the three South Bruce municipalities.