Hurricane

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) added its name to the list of forecasters predicting a relatively mild 2014 Atlantic hurricane season, saying it expects eight to 13 named storms, including three to six hurricanes, one to two of them major (Category 3 or higher).

June natural gas is expected to open a penny higher Wednesday morning at $4.56 as traders reassess recent weather forecasts and balance those against expectations of near-term storage injections that are likely to soften the market. Overnight oil markets rose.

The 2014 Atlantic hurricane season is expected to produce fewer than the average number of tropical storms and hurricanes, according to forecasters at AccuWeather.com, who said tropical development could be altered by the onset of an El Nino even in late summer of fall.

An El Nino event — the warming of water temperatures in the central and equatorial Pacific Ocean — is likely to limit the number of hurricanes that form in the Atlantic Basin this year, according to forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU), more good news for the U.S. natural gas industry, which is increasingly insulated from the impact of tropical storms.

The 2014 Atlantic Hurricane season is likely to be less active than normal, producing fewer powerful storms than average and bringing below-normal risk to the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and Caribbean Sea, according to an early forecast from Houston-based ImpactWeather.

Close to 40% of all of the natural gas produced in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico had been shut in as of Friday, along with nearly half of the oil produced every day.

Offshore operators on Thursday were bringing nonessential personnel to shore and shuttering some production facilities after National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecasters said Tropical Storm Karen could reach hurricane strength by Friday.

Natural gas prices for Friday delivery fell a nickel on average Thursday as most traders elected to get their deals done ahead of a government storage report that was expected to have bearish overtones.

Natural gas pipelines on Destin Pipeline Co.’s system operated by BP Pipelines in the central and eastern Gulf of Mexico (GOM) were in phase 2 of their severe weather contingency plan with all nonessential personnel preparing for evacuation in preparation for what could be the first real tropical storm threat to U.S. energy interests this year, Destin said Wednesday.