With a major hurricane making landfall early Wednesday over the Gulf Coast, natural gas futures were down a few cents in early trading as plump storage inventories continued to weigh on prices near the front of the curve. The October Nymex contract was off 2.7 cents to $2.335/MMBtu at around 8:50 a.m. ET.

AM markets

Hurricane Sally made landfall along the Alabama coast as a Category 2 early Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC). The storm is likely to cause “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” over parts of the north-central Gulf Coast.

As of 8 a.m. ET, Sally was about 25 miles west-southwest of Pensacola, FL, traveling north-northeast at close to 3 mph and carrying maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, the NHC said.

“A north-northeastward to...