Northwest Natural Gas Company stores and distributes natural gas primarily in Oregon, Washington, and California. The company operates in two segments, Local Gas Distribution and Gas Storage. The Local Gas Distribution segment distributes natural gas to residential, commercial, and industrial customers in Oregon and southwest Washington. It engages in building and maintaining pipeline distribution system; purchasing gas from producers and marketers; contracting for the transportation of gas over pipelines from the supply basins to service territory; and reselling the gas commodity. This segment also transports gas owned by customers from the interstate pipeline connection, or city gate, to the customers' facilities. As of December 31, 2012, it had approximately 686,000 utility customers, consisting of approximately 621,000 residential, 64,000 commercial, and 1,000 industrial customers. The Gas Storage segment offers underground natural gas storage services to interstate and intrastate customers. It holds interests in approximately 12,000 net acres of underground natural gas storage in Oregon; and 5,000 net acres of underground natural gas storage in California. This segment serves primarily natural gas production or distribution, electric generation, and energy marketing companies. Northwest Natural Gas Company was founded in 1859 and is headquartered in Portland, Oregon.