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Nature of Business	3 Months Ended
Nature of Business	Dec. 31, 2016
Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]
Nature of Business	Nature of Business Atmos Energy Corporation (“Atmos Energy” or the “Company”) is engaged primarily in the regulated natural gas distribution and pipeline business. Our regulated businesses are subject to federal and state regulation and/or regulation by local authorities in each of the states our regulated divisions and subsidiaries operate. Our distribution business delivers natural gas through sales and transportation arrangements to approximately three million residential, commercial, public authority and industrial customers through our six natural gas distribution divisions, which at December 31, 2016, covered service areas located in eight states. In addition, we transport natural gas for others through our distribution system. Our pipeline and storage business includes the transportation of natural gas to our North Texas and Louisiana distribution systems and the management of our underground storage facilities used to support our North Texas distribution business. Through December 31, 2016, Atmos Energy was also engaged in certain nonregulated businesses. As more fully described in Note 6, effective January 1, 2017, we sold all of the equity interests of Atmos Energy Marketing, LLC (AEM) to CenterPoint Energy Services, Inc., a subsidiary of CenterPoint Energy Inc. As a result of the sale, Atmos Energy has fully exited the nonregulated gas marketing business. Additionally, as further described in Note 3, we modified our reporting segments as a result of the sale.