As the year 2016 ends, it will serve as a reminder of the continuing plague of bankruptcies by energy firms throughout Oklahoma, Texas and other energy-producing states.
The year proved to be a tough one for some of the energy firms, although not quite as severe as 2015. There were 232 bankruptcy filings in the U.S. and Canada representing $96.2 billion in debt since the beginning of 2015, according to a year-end bankruptcy report from the Texas-based law firm of Haynes and Boone LLP. The filings represented exploration and production, oil field services and midstream sectors. The more than $96 billion is an increase of $30 billion since June 2016.
However, with the increase in oil prices in the past few months, the rate of bankruptcy filings has slowed. For instance, one exploration and production company, Stone Energy filed a billion-dollar bankruptcy Dec. 14.
A further breakdown of the filings shows 114 in the Exploration and Production category and they represented $74.2 billion worth of debt since early 2015. At least 110 bankruptcies in the oil field services category were filed representing $18.8 billion. Sixteen midstream companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy representing $17.2 billion in debt.
Two filings were made in Oklahoma U.S. District Court, 10 in Delaware and 59 in Texas. Louisiana had 10. Colorado had 4 and Kansas reported two bankruptcy filings.
Osage Exploration and Development filed in the Western District of Oklahoma in February with $39 million in debt. PostRock Energy filed in April and listed $99 million in debts. Debts from the two filings represented nearly $139 million.
Oklahoma City-based Chaparral Energy filed in May with $1.8 billion in debt but took the action in Delaware. Oklahoma City-based SandRidge Energy had one of the countries biggest bankruptcies—–$4 billion in debt, according to the court filing made in Houston, Texas.
Texas had most of the energy bankruptcy filings from 117 energy companies. Fifty-one producers had debt totaling more than $32 billion, according to the Haynes and Boone report.