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The El Nino-Southern Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation affected regional climates and contributed to many of the world’s significant weather events in 2010, including global temperatures that were among the warmest on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Sempra Energy is one of many U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal operators weighing its options for exporting domestic supplies as LNG given North America’s relatively low gas prices for gas. The LNG unit for the San Diego-based energy holding company said last week it will seek a partner to share the market risks of a liquefaction project.

Sempra Energy is one of many U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal operators weighing its options for exporting domestic supplies as LNG given North America’s relatively bargain prices for gas compared to Europe and Asia. The LNG unit for the San Diego-based energy holding company said Tuesday it would seek a partner to share the market risks of a liquefaction project.

The 2011 Atlantic hurricane season may not be as active as previously predicted, producing only as many tropical storms as the 1995-2010 average (15 named storms, including eight hurricanes, four of them Category Three or greater), but the United States can expect two or three hurricanes to make landfall this year, forecasters at WSI Corp. said Tuesday.

Even if producers are prevented from hydraulically fracturing (fracking) wells in New York, they may not declare a force majeure and still must pay property owners to hold the leases, a district court judge has ruled.

Los Angeles has opened another natural gas transportation fueling facility in its sanitation department, which runs many of its refuse hauling trucks on liquefied natural gas (LNG) or compressed natural gas (CNG) as it changes from traditional diesel fuel. The LA Sanitation District’snew North Central Clean Fuel Dispensing Facility fuels the city fleet of recycling and refuse-collection vehicles. Los Angeles officials have committed to increase the number of alternative fuel vehicles in the city fleet by 15% annually until 85% of the fleet is converted by fiscal 2012-2013. The new fueling station is the city’s 19th alternative fuel location, part of the largest CNG fleet in the United States, according to the city.

The transition to spring may have officially occurred Sunday, and sources indicated that many people were enjoying the appropriate weather. But there seems to be some trouble getting Old Man Winter off the seasonal stage, as a significant winter storm bearing snow starts moving westward from the Plains into the Midwest as early as Tuesday. From there colder conditions will continue spreading through the Northeast and eventually the South.

With more spring-like conditions having replaced the prevalent bitter cold of the past two weeks in many market regions, a majority of points recorded losses ranging from 2-3 cents to about a dime, with only a couple of them being more than single digits. The Northeast, which is getting what is expected to be short-lived return of wintry weather, was home to most of the locations that were flat to about 95 cents higher.

As could be expected, weekend warming trends in many parts of the U.S. and Canada combined with a forecast of above-normal temperatures in most of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. this week to keep prices falling at all points Friday. The previous day’s March futures drop of nearly 6 cents in the face of a nominally bullish storage report and the usual weekend decline of industrial load put further downward pressure on the cash market.