Zombies appear in U.S. oilfields as crude plumbs new lows
Source: Reuters
Top News | Thu Dec 10, 2015 7:35am EST
Zombies appear in U.S. oilfields as crude plumbs new lows
HOUSTON/CHICAGO | BY ANNA DRIVER AND TRACY RUCINSKI
Drained by a 17-month crude rout, some U.S. shale oil companies are merely hanging on for life as oil prices lurch further away from levels that allow them to profitably drill new wells and bring in enough cash to keep them in business.
The slump has created dozens of oil and gas "zombies," a term lawyers and restructuring advisers use to describe companies that have just enough money to pay interest on mountains of debt, but not enough to drill enough new wells to replace older ones that are drying out.
Though there is no single definition of a zombie, most investors and analysts consulted by Reuters say they tend to have exceptionally high debt loads and face the prospect of shrinking oil reserves.
About two dozen oil and gas companies whose debt Moody's rates toward the bottom of its junk bond scale broadly fit that description. Investors and analysts mentioned SandRidge Energy Inc. (SD.N), Comstock Resources (CRK.N), and Goodrich Petroleum Co (GDP.N) as some of that group's more prominent members.
To stay alive, zombie companies have curbed costly drilling and are using revenue from existing production to pay interest and other expenses in a process some describe as "slow-motion liquidation."
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Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-usa-zombies-insight-idUSKBN0TT0FA20151210
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