Segment Information

9 Months Ended

Sep. 30, 2014

Segment Reporting [Abstract]

Segment Information [Text Block]

4. SEGMENT INFORMATION

We primarily operate in two reportable business segments: local gas distribution and gas storage. We also have other investments and business activities not specifically related to one of these two reporting segments, which we aggregate and report as other. We refer to our local gas distribution business as the utility, and our gas storage segment and other as non-utility. Our utility segment also includes the utility portion of our Mist underground storage facility in Oregon (Mist) and NWN Gas Reserves, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Energy Corp. Our gas storage segment includes NWN Gas Storage, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NWN Energy, Gill Ranch, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NWN Gas Storage, the non-utility portion of Mist, and all third-party asset management services. Other includes NNG Financial and NWN Energy's equity investment in PGH, which is pursuing development of a cross-Cascades transmission pipeline project. See Note 4 in our 2013 Form 10-K for further discussion of our segments.

The following table presents summary financial information concerning the reportable segments; inter-segment transactions are insignificant for the periods presented:

	Three Months Ended September 30,
In thousands	Utility			Gas Storage		Other			Total
2014
Operating revenues	$	82,361		$	4,782	$	56		$	87,199
Depreciation and amortization	18,279			1,659		—			19,938
Income (loss) from operations	(6,221		)	926		218			(5,077		)
Net income (loss)	(8,808		)	2		73			(8,733		)
Capital expenditures	33,717			346		—			34,063
2013
Operating revenues	$	80,705		$	7,434	$	56		$	88,195
Depreciation and amortization	17,118			1,619		—			18,737
Income (loss) from operations	(7,293		)	3,556		(50		)	(3,787		)
Net income (loss)	(9,605		)	1,407		(35		)	(8,233		)
Capital expenditures	30,805			427		—			31,232

	Nine Months Ended September 30,
In thousands	Utility		Gas Storage		Other			Total
2014
Operating revenues	$	495,931	$	17,655	$	168		$	513,754
Depreciation and amortization	54,333		4,903		—			59,236
Income from operations	78,971		3,994		252			83,217
Net income	29,416		472		334			30,222
Capital expenditures	85,793		759		—			86,552
Total assets at September 30, 2014	2,539,834		277,689		16,001			2,833,524
2013
Operating revenues	$	474,307	$	23,295	$	168		$	497,770
Depreciation and amortization	51,617		4,857		—			56,474
Income (loss) from operations	72,372		11,138		(8		)	83,502
Net income (loss)	27,083		4,495		(46		)	31,532
Capital expenditures	85,327		960		—			86,287
Total assets at September 30, 2013	2,502,688		287,317		15,908			2,805,913
Total assets at December 31, 2013	2,644,367		310,097		16,447			2,970,911

Utility Margin

Utility margin is a financial measure consisting of utility operating revenues, which are reduced by revenue taxes and the associated cost of gas. The cost of gas purchased for utility customers is generally a pass-through cost in the amount of revenues billed to regulated utility customers. By subtracting costs of gas from utility operating revenues, utility margin provides a key metric used by our chief operating decision maker in assessing the performance of the utility segment. The following table presents additional segment information concerning utility margin. The gas storage and other segments emphasize growth in operating revenues and net income as opposed to margin because these segments do not incur a product cost (i.e. cost of gas sold) like the utility and, therefore, use operating revenues and net income to assess performance.

The following table presents margin information for our utility segment:

	Three Months Ended September 30,				Nine Months Ended September 30,
In thousands	2014		2013		2014		2013
Utility margin calculation:
Utility operating revenues	$	82,361	$	80,705	$	495,931	$	474,307
Less: Utility cost of gas	32,227		33,655		245,708		235,156
Utility margin	$	50,134	$	47,050	$	250,223	$	239,151