This week’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by Oklahoma City-based SandRidge energy brought the number of energy producers in bankruptcy to 77 since the beginning of 2015, according to Haynes and Boone, the bankruptcy law firm based in Texas.
It also raised the total of secured and unsecured liabilities and debt in the cases to nearly $52 billion nationwide. that includes nearly $31 billion in unsecured debt and $21 billion in secured debt racked up by the various oil and gas companies.
In order, the last several firms to file were SandRidge Energy, preceded by BreitBurn Operating LP, Penn Virginia Corp., Berry Petroleum LLC, Linn Energy LLC and Chaparral Inc.
The bankruptcy filings in Oklahoma’s district courts totals $138,654,484. The SandRidge filing was in Houston in the southern district court of Texas. It added to the $23,975,998,369 in energy bankruptcy filings since 2015.
Other bankruptcies are expected. Seventy Seven Energy, as OK Energy Today reported earlier was preparing to make the filing by June.
“Keep an eye out, there’ll be more,” said Charles Beckham Jr., a law partner of Haynes and Boone told the Wall Street Journal. “For the industry it’s kind of a dreadful watch.”
