The federal carbon tax that came into effect April 1, won't immediately impact Union Gas customers in Sarnia-Lambton.
The tax will add four cents more, per cubic metre, to natural gas bills in Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan.
Union Gas spokesperson Andrea Stass said that's roughly equal to about $86 a year for residential customers.
However, she said customers won't see it on their bills just yet.
"In order to make any change to our bill we have to get approval from our regulator," said Stass. "We have an application in front of the Ontario Energy Board and they're still taking a look at that application. So, we don't actually have regulatory approval to charge customers today. We however as a utility will begin incurring those costs, so we're going to track them and we will seek to recover those costs from customers at a later date yet. We just don't know at this point what that date is."
In the meantime, Stass said the Ontario Energy Board has approved a rate decrease for Union Gas customers.
The cost of natural gas is down about $21 a year, or three percent for customers in Sarnia-Lambton, as of April 1.
