NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- With oil at record highs grabbing everyone's attention, investors in energy stocks are already turning to the Atlantic Hurricane season to determine which firms will benefit and which will lose.

Even a slight disruption to production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico could push oil prices to even higher stratospheric levels, unleashing more dislocation in the energy sector: Hurting some oil and gas producers and refiners while benefiting oil players, such as aftermath service providers, analysts said.

The Gulf of Mexico provices about 32% of crude oil and 15% of U.S. natural gas production.

"The hurricane season can affect the [energy] sector dramatically. It's all about the fear factor," said Beth Sewell, managing partner of Quantum Gas & Power Services. "As a storm comes, traders will always trade on the uncertainty and trading goes through the roof."

The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on June 1 and runs through the end of November, and the period between August to September historically provides the bulk of named storms and major hurricanes.

Ever since the disasters of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in the summer of 2005, traders have tended to added premiums to some energy stocks ahead of time. According to Sewell, there is already a hurricane-related premium of about 10% to 20% on average in energy stocks.

"It's already been jacked up given all the international and hedge fund money flowing into the sector," she said.

Yet, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration currently forecasts a 65% chance that this year's season will be more active than normal and yielding above-average size storms.

Meanwhile, AccuWeather is predicting 12 named storms in 2008, and believes at least 40% of them will cause tropical storm or hurricane conditions along the U.S. coastline.

Energy dislocations

With the overall energy sector already incensed by record oil prices, many sectors within the energy space are already exceptionally volatile, according to Susquehanna, an institutional sale, research and market making firm.

"In our opinion, this year's hurricane season is likely to be watched very closely as investors typically envision worst case scenarios, and any storm headed for the Gulf of Mexico could potentially set off a rush of speculative buying," said Brian Niemiec, energy analyst at Susquehanna, in a note.

This year's first named storm could be a potential catalyst for the overall sector since last year's hurricane season was somewhat uneventful, he said.

According to Niemec's analysis, oil and gas exploration and production players with significant exposure to the Gulf of Mexico with limited hedging against production losses are Nexen Inc.