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A new record for daily natural gas consumption in the province was set this week due to the extreme cold temperatures over the weekend, along with high natural gas consumption and new customer growth.   

In the 24-hour period beginning Sunday, January 4th to Monday, January 5th, TransGas, the natural gas transmission subsidiary of SaskEnergy, delivered 1.27 PetaJoules (PJ) of natural gas to its customers in Saskatchewan.  This is a two per cent increase over the previous record of 1.24 PJ/day, which was set on December 6, 2013. A PetaJoule is a unit of measurement equivalent to one million GigaJoules of natural gas – the average home in Saskatchewan consumes about 105 GigaJoules of natural gas annually.

Record-setting and near record-setting usage days are happening more frequently as SaskEnergy adds new customers.  Since the previous record was set, SaskEnergy has added over 7,300 new customers – homes, businesses and industry – to its distribution system.  SaskEnergy’s system is designed around this increased growth, ensuring additional capacity so that even on peak record days the system is able to provide more natural gas than required.

SaskEnergy/TransGas employees work throughout the year to inspect, maintain and upgrade the province’s natural gas system so that it can operate safely and efficiently regardless of weather conditions. The system is continuously monitored to manage peak demands such as the extreme winter weather conditions that occurred over the weekend.