Northwest Natural Gas Company. The Group's principal activities are to distribute natural gas and provide natural gas storage services. It operates in three segments: Utility, Gas storage and Other. The Utility segment includes the distribution of natural gas. The Gas storage segment provides gas storage services to interstate customers using its storage capacity not required for utility services. The Other segment includes non-regulated investments in alternative energy projects in California and a Boeing 737-300 aircraft leased to Continental Airlines. As of 31-Dec-2002, the Group had 503,402 residential customers, 56,087 commercial customers and 628 industrial customers primarily in western Oregon and Washington. The Group serves the pulp, paper, electronics, electrochemicals, electrometallurgicals, farm and food products, minerals, metal fabrication and casting, machine tools, machinery and textiles industries.