Cascade Natural Gas Dedicates Consolidated Customer Call Center -- New Bellingham Facility Averages 2,100 Calls Per Day.

SEATTLE -- Cascade Natural Gas Corporation (NYSE:CGC) today dedicates its new company-wide customer service center in Bellingham, Wash. The company invested $1.3 million in the expanded facility and new technology, which handles an average of 2,100 inbound calls each day from residential and commercial customers.

Cascade migrated call center functions to Bellingham over the past three months. Previously, the company provided customer service in 13 separate locations throughout its service area in Washington and Oregon. Those sites continue as operations bases, along with a training center in Yakima, Wash., and a new-customer service center in Sunnyside, Wash., which also serves as a back-up site for the Bellingham call center.

Customers can contact Cascade by using a toll-free number or the Internet. Initially, the call center will employ 25 people, 15 of whom were hired from the local community.

"Our goals were to standardize and improve both basic customer service and emergency communications," said Julie Marshall, Cascade's customer service director. "By consolidating our customer-service process and investing in new technology and expanded facilities, we can help keep customer-service costs as low as possible. We selected Bellingham because the community had an excellent expandable site, a solid technical infrastructure and a high-quality workforce."

About Cascade

Cascade Natural Gas Corporation, a natural gas distribution company, serves 220,000 residential, commercial, industrial and transportation customers in 93 communities in Washington and Oregon. Headquarters are in Seattle and more information is available at www.cngc.com.