Daniel will oversee the company's gas storage business, including the proposed Gill Ranch Storage project located near Fresno, California. His responsibilities will also include the marketing of NW Natural's interstate storage services provided from its Mist storage facility located in Oregon.

Daniel, who has more than 15 years of natural gas storage experience, was previously President of EnCana Gas Storage.

"We are pleased to have someone with Rick's extensive storage expertise join our team," said Gregg Kantor, President and CEO of NW Natural. "His proficiency in developing and running a storage business will beextremely valuable as we grow our nonutility storage operations."

Born and raised in Alberta, Canada, Daniel received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors in 1972 and a Master of Arts degree in 1973 from the University of Alberta. He completed his MBA at Queen's University in 1981.

"I'm excited for the opportunity to be working with a 150-year-old company that's had a successful track record of developing storage assets," Daniel said. "NW Natural is very well positioned to be a strong competitor in the nonutility gas storage sector and I look forward to contributing to its future growth and continued success."

About NW Natural

NW Natural is headquartered in Portland, Ore., and serves more than 662,000 residential and business customers in Oregon and Southwest Washington. It is the largest independent natural gas utility in the Pacific Northwest, and recognized its 150th year as a company on Jan. 7, 2009. The company has approximately $2 billion in total assets, which includes approximately 16 Bcf of underground gas storage capacity within its service territory at Mist, Ore.

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