Hurricane

With eight weeks remaining until the start of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, scientists at Colorado State University (CSU) said they expect slightly-above-average tropical storm activity this year.

An unusually active hurricane season and volatile commodity prices bit into Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s oil and gas sales volumes during the third quarter, but double-digit production gains from its three Ds — deepwater Gulf of Mexico (GOM), Denver-Julesburg (DJ) Basin and the Permian Basin’s Delaware — proved their mettle, CEO Al Walker said Wednesday.

Gulf of Mexico (GOM) oil and natural gas production was coming back online and personnel were returning to work after Hurricane Nate ambled ashore over the weekend, with no offshore infrastructure reportedly damaged.

Before Hurricane Harvey pummeled the state and wiped out, at least temporarily, some employment, the Texas economy in August expanded for the 14th consecutive month, adding 5,500 jobs, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) said Friday.

Natural gas forward prices for October rose an average 17 cents from Sept. 8-14 as weather forecasts called for warmer-than-normal temperatures to finish out the month, according to NGI’s Forward Look. But the market’s realization that demand destruction caused by Hurricane Irma may have been overestimated also weighed on forwards this week.

The oil and gas industry is able to respond faster than it did a decade ago when severe storms hit the U.S. Gulf Coast, but the region today also is more strategic to world energy markets, which means disruptions like Hurricane Harvey have to be overcome, and quickly, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.

Hurricane Irma made landfall in Florida early Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm, strafing the state and knocking out power to millions. Authorities said it could takes weeks before power is restored to every customer.

October natural gas is set to open 2 cents higher Thursday morning at $3.02 as traders assess what could be a bearish double whammy of a violent load-killing hurricane headed for Florida and a government storage report expected to give insight into last week’s impact on supply and demand from Hurricane Harvey. Overnight oil markets were mixed.

With the potentially catastrophic Category 5 Hurricane Irma maintaining its collision course with the Florida coast, Southeast utilities continued to brace for impact Thursday as the market braces for natural gas demand destruction.