據油價網休斯敦報道，疫情和油價暴跌加速了今年美國頁巖行業破產申請的步伐。在2018年第4季度油價下跌后，2019年美國能源行業的申請破產數量已經開始上升，但今年，美國能源行業創下了一些糟糕的記錄，因為負債嚴重的頁巖生產商面臨著過去幾年大舉借貸的清算。

今年到目前為止，美國能源行業破產的公司已超過了20家，這些公司的負債總額超過了5000萬美元。根據彭博社匯編的統計數據，這是自2016年上半年油價暴跌以來，今年上半年申請來自債權人保護的最高數字。僅在6月份，美國就有7家油氣公司申請破產保護，與2016年4月創下的月度破產申請高峰持平。

由于在疫情爆發之前的幾年里向銀行大量借款，許多美國石油和天然氣鉆探公司就已經靠借債度日。但石油需求的崩潰和油價的暴跌縮短了負債公司拖延時間，加速了破產申請的上升趨勢。

分析師和法律專業人士預計，盡管WTI原油價格在6月底比4月平均水平上漲了一倍多，至每桶近40美元，但未來幾個月美國頁巖行業仍將出現更多的能源破產申請。

據彭博社估計，能源行業申請破產保護的數量是美國今年迄今為止第二高，僅次于零售和娛樂業的破產數量。

僅在6月的最后一周里，就有幾家公司申請了破產保護，其中包括水力壓裂技術先驅切薩皮克能源公司。該公司是迄今為止油價暴跌的最大受害者，也是美國頁巖行業過去幾年借貸鉆井的最突出例子。

切薩皮克能源公司已經與債權人達成協議，對其90億美元債務中的70億美元進行重組。

誠然，切薩皮克能源公司在沒有疫情、需求和價格崩潰的情況下也可以申請破產保護。WM上游團隊首席分析師Alex Beeker表示：“切薩皮克能源公司的這一申請破產保護已經醞釀了很長時間。不管有沒有Covid-19，這種情況都可能發生。”

Beeker說：“如果我用一個詞來形容切薩皮克能源公司，那就是“過量”，過量的負債，過量的成本以及在供過于求市場上過量的天然氣。

雖然切薩皮克能源公司是過去一段時間里美國能源企業破產案的頭條新聞，但另外兩家能源企業也申請了破產保護，它們是二疊紀盆地油氣生產商Lilis 能源公司和Sable Permian 資源公司。

Haynes and Boone律師事務所的統計數據顯示，在此之前，1月至5月期間，北美有18家石油和天然氣公司申請了破產保護，其中包括鉆石海上鉆井公司和懷廷石油公司。

切薩皮克能源公司備受矚目的破產事件表明，近幾年來美國頁巖行業“過量”舉債，正如哈羅德?哈姆在2017年警告的那樣，一些公司最終“把自己鉆到遺忘中”。

美國能源行業的融資窗口已經關閉，因為在疫情爆發前一年多，債權人和投資者對頁巖行業的態度已經惡化，而油價4年來又第二次暴跌。

在這種長期低油價的環境下，美國越來越多的石油和天然氣公司開始尋求通過破產法第11章的程序來重組債務，尤其是在能源行業破產最多的德克薩斯州。

美國頁巖行業的申請破產保護數字在增加，而業界普遍的看法是這一趨勢才剛剛開始。

李峻 編譯自 油價網

原文如下：

$40 Oil Isn’t Enough To Prevent A Wave Of Shale Bankruptcies

The coronavirus pandemic and the oil price collapse are accelerating the pace of bankruptcy filings in the U.S. shale patch this year. The number of filings had already started to trend up in 2019 after a drop in prices in Q4 2018, but this year, the U.S. energy industry is setting some grim records as indebted cash-strapped producers face a day of reckoning from the borrowing exuberance of the past years.

So far this year, bankruptcies in the U.S. energy industry have exceeded 20 filings from companies with more than US$50 million in liabilities. This is the highest number of first-half filings for protection from creditors since the first half of 2016, during the previous oil price collapse, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In June alone, seven oil and gas companies filed for Chapter 11, matching the record from the monthly peak in bankruptcy filings set in April 2016.

Many U.S. oil and gas drillers were already living on borrowed time even before the COVID-19 pandemic, thanks to heavy borrowings from banks over the past years. But the crash in oil demand and the collapse in oil prices shortened the time for indebted companies to be able to kick the can down the road, accelerating the upward trend in bankruptcy filings.

Analysts and legal professionals expect more energy bankruptcies in the U.S. shale patch in the coming months even as WTI Crude prices more than doubled to nearly $40 a barrel by the end of June from the average in April.

The number of filings for protection from creditors in the energy sector has been the second-highest so far this year, second only to bankruptcies in the retail and entertainment industry, according to Bloomberg estimates.

In the last week of June alone, several companies filed for Chapter 11 protection, including fracking pioneer Chesapeake Energy, the biggest victim of the price crash so far and the most prominent example of the U.S. shale industry’s modus operandi of the past few years—borrow to drill.

Chesapeake has reached an agreement with creditors to restructure some US$7 billion out of its US$9 billion debt.

Granted, Chesapeake could have resorted to bankruptcy filing even in the absence of the pandemic and the collapse in demand and prices. “This filing has been a long time coming,” Alex Beeker, principal analyst on Wood Mackenzie’s corporate upstream team, said.

“It was likely going to happen with or without Covid-19.”

“If I were to describe Chesapeake in one word, that word is ‘excess’ - excess liabilities, excess costs, excess gas in an oversupplied market, said Beeker.

While Chesapeake was the headline in the U.S. energy bankruptcies this past week, two other energy firms filed for protection from creditors—Permian producers Lilis Energy and Sable Permian Resources.

Before that, between January and May, 18 oil and gas firms in North America filed for bankruptcy, including Diamond Offshore Drilling and Whiting Petroleum, data from law firm Haynes and Boone showed.

Chesapeake’s high-profile bankruptcy this week is indicative of the ‘excess’ in the U.S. shale patch, which had borrowed heavily in recent years, and some companies ultimately ‘drilled themselves into oblivion’ as Harold Hamm had warned back in 2017.

The window of financing for the U.S. energy industry is closed, as creditors and investors had soured on the shale patch more than a year before the pandemic struck, and prices crashed for the second time in four years.

In this low-for-longer price environment, a growing number of oil and gas firms are looking to restructure debt via Chapter 11 proceedings, especially in Texas, where the number of energy bankruptcies is the highest.

Bankruptcy filings are up, and prevailing opinion is that the trend is only beginning.