據油價網休斯敦報道，超過300億美元：這是今年上半年美國申請破產保護的石油和天然氣公司的債務總和。今年上半年美國共有23家公司提交了破產保護申請，其中有5家公司是在第二季度Covid-19疫情已真正形成時提交申請的。現在，隨著新申請案例的重新出現，對石油需求前景的疑慮也同樣重新抬頭，更多的破產保護申請將接踵而至。Haynes和Boone律師事務所在6月份發表的石油和天然氣公司申請破產保護報告中稱，“有理由預計，即使未來幾個月油價回升，仍有相當多的油氣生產商將繼續尋求來自債權人的破產保護。”原因是：微溫的石油需求改善和更加微溫的經濟改善。Haynes和Boone律師事務所指出，在經濟恢復正常之前，石油和天然氣的現狀不太可能出現任何顯著改善。

然而，在該行業內，不同的部門有不同程度的脆弱性。例如，正如韋斯特伍德全球能源集團在最近的一份報告中指出的那樣，油田服務部門是最脆弱的。由于幾乎完全依賴上游部門，油田服務部門傳統上是最脆弱的部門。正如我們在上次危機中看到的那樣，當勘探和生產下滑時，實際上提供這些服務的公司受到的影響最大。盡管上游行業也受到了2014-2016年油價暴跌的沉重打擊，但對他們的服務提供商來說，情況沒有那么糟糕。后者被迫降低其服務的價格以求生存，這反過來幫助生產商限制了他們的損失。

韋斯特伍德全球能源集團咨詢主管阿林達姆?達斯在對美國油價網的評論中指出，目前上游行業也處于困境，尤其是美國頁巖行業。達斯表示，美國頁巖氣生產商是油氣行業中僅次于油田服務提供商的最脆弱群體，加拿大西部的小型勘探和生產公司也是如此。

還記得那些在今年上半年破產的公司所積累的300億美元的債務嗎?確切的數字是306.2億美元，相比之下，2019年全年破產的所有頁巖公司的累計債務為257.7億美元。僅在今年第二季度，申請破產保護的能源公司就累積了290億美元的債務——再次超過了去年全年的數字。銀行也越來越不愿意和這樣一個麻煩纏身的行業打交道。

在危機爆發前，貸款機構就開始收緊對來自頁巖盆地的借款人的要求，這是因為盡管總體產量出現激增，但其中許多借款人一直未能實現其生產目標。現在，由于經濟前景比過去很長一段時間都要嚴峻，貸款機構進一步收緊了貸款要求，不過，正如韋斯特伍德全球能源集團的達斯指出的那樣，銀行仍然對信譽良好的企業開放。

在這方面，油田服務提供商的地位幾乎比其他所有公司都要脆弱。達斯表示，在危機爆發之前，銀行已經減少了對這一行業的風險敞口，而且在收緊對仍是其客戶的這一行業參與者的貸款標準的同時，銀行似乎還會繼續這樣做。

或許合并可以幫助美國石油和天然氣行業重新站起來，但到目前為止，唯一登上頭條的重大交易是雪佛龍公司收購諾布爾能源公司，其中不確定性是一個很大的因素。該行業的未來，尤其是頁巖行業的未來充滿了不確定性，這可能會抑制私人股本支持的公司的胃口，否則這些公司就會一股勁地撲向這塊美味的蛋糕。

根據達斯的說法，這種情況可能會改變。私人股本支持的買家仍可能決定利用低油價環境的優勢，這種環境使許多資產變得便宜。達斯指出，如果出現這種情況，他們將會追求能產生現金的資產，而不是需要巨額投資才能開發的處于開發早期階段的資產。事實上，這似乎是業內普遍的看法。

今年早些時候，Natural Gas Partners的合伙人戴維· 海耶斯告訴《米德記者電報》：“當油價回到50美元左右的價位時，我們將會再次進行鉆井作業。它將是非常規的，但它將更加注重發展。”“任何只要有一點點勘探的跡象，都不是近期資本關注的焦點，無論是公有還是私有資本。”

似乎沒有人愿意冒太大的風險，這是可以理解的：這種情況是前所未有的。

托克集團首席經濟學家薩阿德·拉希姆在4月份告訴《華爾街日報》記者：“自從人類開始使用石油以來，我們從未見過這樣的情況。我們根本沒有可以遵循的指南。這種情況是未知的。”

在這樣的一個環境中，小心謹慎將成為所有人——賣家和買家、貸款人和股東——博弈的根本目標。

李峻 編譯自 油價網

原文如下：

U.S. Shale Faces Another Round Of Bankruptcies

More than thirty billion dollars: this is the size of the collective debt of oil and gas companies that filed for bankruptcy protection in the first half of the year. That is 23 companies, all but five of which filed during the second quarter when Covid-19 really took hold. Now, with the resurgence of new cases and an equal resurgence in doubts about the outlook for oil demand, more filings are on the way.“It is reasonable to expect that a substantial number of producers will continue to seek protection from creditors in bankruptcy even if oil prices recover over the next few months,” Haynes and Boone said in its June report on oil and gas bankruptcies. The reasons: lukewarm oil demand improvement and even more lukewarm economic improvement. Until economies return to normal, the law firm noted, the situation for oil and gas is unlikely to book any marked improvement.

Yet within the industry, different segments have different degrees of vulnerability. Oilfield services, for instance, is the most vulnerable, as Westwood Global Energy Group noted in a recent report. Oilfield services are traditionally the most vulnerable because of their almost complete dependence on the upstream segment. When exploration and production slump, the companies actually providing these services suffer the most, as we saw during the last crisis. While the upstream segment also took a hard hit from the 2014-2016 oil price collapse, it was not as painful as it was for their services providers. The latter were forced to lower the prices of their services to survive, which in turn helped producers to limit their losses.

Arindam Das, head of consulting at Westwood Global Energy Group, noted in a comment on Oilprice.com that the upstream industry is also in trouble, particularly in the U.S. shale industry.According to Das, shale gas producers are the most vulnerable group in the oil and gas industry after oilfield service providers, as are small exploration and production companies in western Canada.

Remember the $30 billion in debt accumulated by companies that went bust in the first half of this year?The exact figure is $30.62bn, compared with the cumulative debt of $25.77bn for all companies that went bankrupt in the whole of 2019.In the second quarter alone, energy companies that filed for bankruptcy protection piled up $29 billion in debt -- again more than for all of last year.Banks are also increasingly reluctant to do business with such a troubled industry.

Lenders started tightening their requirements for borrowers from the shale patch before the crisis, as many of them kept failing to hit their production targets despite the overall production boom. Now, with the outlook grimmer than it has been for a long time, they are tightening their lending requirements further, although, as Westwood’s Das notes, banks remain open to businesses with long-standing good names.

Here again, oilfield services providers are in a weaker position than pretty much everyone else. Banks have been reducing their exposure to this segment of the industry for a while before the crisis struck, according to Das, and it seems they will continue doing that while they tighten their lending criteria for the sector players that are still their clients.

Perhaps a consolidation could help the U.S. oil and gas industry get back on its feet, but so far, the only major deal that made headlines was Chevron’s acquisition of Noble Energy. Uncertainty is a big factor here. The future of the industry, especially the shale patch, is highly uncertain, and this may be dampening the appetite of private equity-backed companies that would have otherwise swooped in to pick up the tastiest morsels.

This might change, according to Das. Private equity-backed buyers could yet decide to take advantage of the low oil price environment that is making a lot of assets cheap. If that happens, they will go after cash generative assets, Das noted, rather than assets in the early stages of development that would require a hefty investment to exploit. Indeed, this seems to be the prevailing sentiment in the industry.

“We will be drilling wells again when oil is back in probably the $50 range,” David Hayes, partner at Natural Gas Partners, told the Midland Reporter-Telegram earlier this year. “It will be unconventional, and it will be horizontal, but it will be much more development-focused. Anything with even a whiff of exploration is not a near-term focus for capital, public or private.”

Nobody, it seems, wants to risk too much, and this is understandable: the situation is unprecedented.

“Since humans started using oil, we have never seen anything like this,” the chief economist of Trafigura, Saad Rahim, told the Wall Street Journal in April. “There is no guide we are following. This is uncharted.”

In such an environment, caution would be the name of the game for everyone—sellers and buyers, lenders, and shareholders.