According to several online sources specializing in the U.S. energy sector, the amount of businesses in the U.S. energy sector that went bankrupt in 2015 increased all the way up to 13%. The sources rely on the results of the resent research conducted by Fitch. Back in 2014, the similar figures used to be under 2%. On top of that, the experts are sure that by the end of 2016, the amount of bankruptcies among U.S. energy companies is going to reach 20%.
To be more specific, most of those bankruptcies come from the commodity niche of the energy sector, Masterforex-V Academy experts report. Apparently this has a lot to do with low oil prices. Previously, a JP Morgan Chase representative said that once oil prices kept on staying around $35/b in the near future, at least 36% of the U.S. energy sector would go bankrupt.
A couple of weeks ago, 2 major energy players in the USA – Ultra Petroleum and Midstates Petroleum – filed for bankruptcy. The total amount of debt owned by these 2 companies amounts to as much as 6 billion dollars! It is also reported that in 2015, 67 energy companies working in the natural gas and crude oil industries went bankrupt. This is a 380% increase as opposed to 2014. On top of that, the experts say that more of those companies working in the U.S. energy sector are yet to file for bankruptcy. The thing is, there is a whole bunch of American oil businesses that stay unprofitable even if the price of oil is around $45/b. On top of that, JP Morgan Chase and other American banking heavyweights has announced a more complex procedure of lending money to such companies due to vague market prospects.
Even such an energy giant as ExxonMobil announced a 64% income drop over the first 3 months of 2016 relative to the same period 12 months before. While in Q1 2015, ExxonMobil made $5 billion, in Q1 2016, it was only $1,8 billion. This is the poorest financial performance seen over the last 17 years. Apparently, everything has to do with low oil prices shaving their profits.
