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                                                               Exhibit 1




for further information: Cynthia Navadeh
412-690-1442


Consolidated Natural Gas Will Focus on Retail Energy Marketing
and Exit Wholesale Business

- - Company will cease wholesale energy marketing and trading 

- - Discontinued operation to result in first-quarter charge 
estimated at $55 million to $75 million pretax

- - Existing commitments to customers and suppliers will be honored 

	PITTSBURGH, April 21, 1998 - Consolidated Natural Gas Company said today 
it will concentrate its unregulated energy marketing activities on retail 
customers and will discontinue wholesale marketing and trading of natural gas 
and electricity, including integrated energy management.
The cost of exiting the unregulated wholesale energy marketing 
operations will result in a pretax charge against first-quarter earnings that 
is estimated to range from $55 million to $75 million. The company will 
publicly report first-quarter earnings on April 30. It will no longer report 
financial results for energy marketing services as a separate segment.
	All existing customer and supplier commitments will be honored as the 
company conducts an orderly transition from the wholesale business. The 
company will close offices in suburban Pittsburgh and in Norwalk, Conn. 
Layoffs are expected to total about 125. Employees who work for the company's 
retail energy marketing business will not be affected.
CNG will continue to compete in the unregulated retail marketplace. 
Doing business as Peoples Plus and East Ohio Energy, the company sells 

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competitively priced natural gas and electricity and other products and 
services to homeowners and small businesses in Pennsylvania and Ohio.
	"Within the growing competitive marketplace for energy, we believe the 
best prospects for profitable growth are occurring on the retail side, and we 
intend to continue to build on our very strong position in this part of the 
business," said George A. Davidson, Jr., chairman and chief executive officer. 
"CNG already is the largest non-utility retail energy marketer in the U.S. 
"We do not see the same opportunities to build shareholder value in 
wholesale marketing and trading, despite our determined efforts over the last 
five years. Wholesale margins across the industry have been driven to 
virtually zero," Mr. Davidson said. "We believe that the time, cost and risk 
involved in further scaling up a wholesale marketing and trading company at 
this stage of market maturity are too great to justify, given the potential 
rewards. 
"We therefore have decided to devote our attention and resources to 
other opportunities that will better enable us to meet our five-year goals of 
increasing income by an average of 10 percent a year and obtaining half our 
income from exploration and production, international and retail energy 
marketing operations."
	Consolidated Natural Gas Company is one of the nation's largest 
producers, transporters, distributors and retail marketers of natural gas. The 
company's natural gas transmission and distribution operations serve customers 
in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, New York and other states in 
the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. CNG explores for and produces natural 

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gas and oil in the United States and Canada. The company also selectively 
participates in energy businesses abroad.
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This press release contains forward-looking statements. The company wishes to 
caution readers that the assumptions which form the basis for forward-looking 
statements with respect to or that may impact earnings for fiscal 1998, and 
thereafter, include many factors that are beyond the company's ability to 
control or estimate precisely, such as estimates of future market conditions 
and the behavior of other market participants. Other factors include, but are 
not limited to, weather conditions, economic conditions in the company's 
service territory, fluctuations in energy-related commodity prices, conversion 
activity, other marketing efforts and other uncertainties.


CNG's recent news releases are available 24 hours a day on the Internet, by 
fax machine, or by voice recording.  On the Internet, use CNG's web site:  
www.cng.com   For faxing, call 1-800-758-5804 on a touch-tone phone and enter 
CNG's company extension, which is 203456.  From a menu, you will then be able 
to select releases that will be faxed to you immediately without charge.  For 
voice recordings, call 1-888-CNG-NEWS.  This line is toll-free.