Natural gas futures were trading slightly lower early Friday as energy operators were in the process of assessing damages and resuming normal activities in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura. After surging 13.6 cents in the previous day’s trading, the October Nymex contract was down 1.7 cents to $2.693/MMBtu at around 8:45 a.m. ET.

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Laura had weakened into a depression as of early Friday. The storm was about 95 miles west-northwest of Memphis, TN, and moving northeast.

Genscape Inc. estimated early Friday that 755,000 people were without power across Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas in the wake of Laura’s destructive path through the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane this week.

“Gulf of Mexico production is still mostly offline — down at least 1.5 Bcf/d from pre-storm levels —...