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2007 News Releases

Atmos Energy Launches New Cooking Web Site

Gas Utility Rekindles Long Tradition using New Electronic Twist

DALLAS, Texas – August 8, 2007 – Atmos Energy Corporation (NYSE: ATO) today launched a new cooking Web site called Atmos Energy Cooks™ to provide resources for its customers and to demonstrate the benefits of natural gas for cooking.

“With the increasing popularity of cooking and the renewed interest Americans have in preparing and sharing wholesome food with their families, we decided to provide an easy-to-use resource for recipes, cooking tips and appliance information,” said Robert W. Best, Atmos Energy chairman, president and chief executive officer.

In past decades, Atmos Energy and its predecessor companies offered information about cooking with natural gas and operated showroom kitchens where home economists would conduct cooking classes and demonstrations. “This site restores a long tradition, but with a modern online twist,” Best said.

The site, found at www.atmosenergycooks.com, initially is offering more than 120 tested recipes. Atmos Energy is inviting customers and employees from its 12-state service area to submit recipes they would like to share.

Every two weeks, the site will showcase a new featured recipe and the recipe’s author. The first featured entree is “Chicken and Mushrooms with Balsamic Vinegar,” by Dallas consultant and cookbook author Brian Cummings.

Many of the recipes and tips on the new site are adapted from Cummings’ cookbooks, You Said a Mouthful: Great Recipes and the Stories They Evoke and Get This Cookbook First: It’s Full of Stuff Mom Should Have Taught You.

Recipes are presented with step-by-step preparation instructions along with a nutritional information chart and a suggested shopping list. Site visitors also can rate the recipes, e-mail them to a friend or print them along with the shopping list.

“We’ve started with a wonderful mix of tasty recipes, and most can be prepared by even the most inexperienced cooks,” explained Cindy Foor, Atmos Energy’s vice president of corporate communications. “We have a number of features in the works to showcase other chefs and interesting dishes from restaurants, hotels and resorts across our service area.”

Atmos Energy plans to continually add more recipes, including ones submitted by its customers and employees, Foor said.

“We’ve tried to make our new site interesting, educational and easy to use, and we will be closely monitoring feedback from site visitors to make sure it’s as helpful as possible.”

Besides recipes, the site contains detailed cooking information including sections about:

• Kitchen techniques, which explain grilling, broiling, sautéing, stir frying, roasting and braising.
• Cooking tips, such as information about kitchen skills, common cooking terms, basic ingredients, herbs and spices, kitchen utensils, knives and food safety.
• Cooking with natural gas, which explains why natural gas is the ideal energy source for cooking, provides information about outdoor rooms and kitchens, and offers guidance for buying a gas grill, cooktop, stove or oven, along with tips for keeping them clean.

About Atmos Energy

Atmos Energy Corporation, headquartered in Dallas, is the country’s largest natural-gas-only distributor, serving about 3.2 million gas utility customers. Atmos Energy’s utility operations serve more than 1,600 communities in 12 states from the Blue Ridge Mountains in the East to the Rocky Mountains in the West. Atmos Energy’s nonutility operations, organized under Atmos Energy Holdings, Inc., operate in 22 states. They provide natural gas marketing and procurement services to industrial, commercial and municipal customers and manage company-owned natural gas storage and pipeline assets, including one of the largest intrastate natural gas pipelines in Texas. Atmos Energy is a Fortune 500 company. For more information, visit www.atmosenergy.com .

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Note to editors: Natural gas has been closely associated with cooking in the public’s mind for decades. Starting in the mid-1930s, natural gas utilities launched consumer and school programs to promote natural gas appliances—especially for kitchens. These programs included gas company cookbooks, appliance demonstrations, state fair exhibits, home economists, materials for schools and traveling displays. With the housing boom after World War II, many gas utilities set up Flame Rooms in company auditoriums to host cooking shows that displayed the latest in gas appliances for Blue Star Homes. Some gas utilities also sponsored local cooking shows in the early days of television. In recent years, gas appliances have been in great demand for larger home kitchens and for popular outdoor rooms. A selection of historic photos and art as well as screen captures of the new Atmos Energy Cooks site is at http://www.atmosenergy.com/news/media_downloads.html to help illustrate this story.

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