40美元油价不足以阻止新一波页岩破产潮

据油价网休斯敦报道，疫情和油价暴跌加速了今年美国页岩行业破产申请的步伐。在2018年第4季度油价下跌后，2019年美国能源行业的申请破产数量已经开始上升，但今年，美国能源行业创下了一些糟糕的记录，因为负债严重的页岩生产商面临着过去几年大举借贷的清算。

今年到目前为止，美国能源行业破产的公司已超过了20家，这些公司的负债总额超过了5000万美元。根据彭博社汇编的统计数据，这是自2016年上半年油价暴跌以来，今年上半年申请来自债权人保护的最高数字。仅在6月份，美国就有7家油气公司申请破产保护，与2016年4月创下的月度破产申请高峰持平。

由于在疫情爆发之前的几年里向银行大量借款，许多美国石油和天然气钻探公司就已经靠借债度日。但石油需求的崩溃和油价的暴跌缩短了负债公司拖延时间，加速了破产申请的上升趋势。

分析师和法律专业人士预计，尽管WTI原油价格在6月底比4月平均水平上涨了一倍多，至每桶近40美元，但未来几个月美国页岩行业仍将出现更多的能源破产申请。

据彭博社估计，能源行业申请破产保护的数量是美国今年迄今为止第二高，仅次于零售和娱乐业的破产数量。

仅在6月的最后一周里，就有几家公司申请了破产保护，其中包括水力压裂技术先驱切萨皮克能源公司。该公司是迄今为止油价暴跌的最大受害者，也是美国页岩行业过去几年借贷钻井的最突出例子。

切萨皮克能源公司已经与债权人达成协议，对其90亿美元债务中的70亿美元进行重组。

诚然，切萨皮克能源公司在没有疫情、需求和价格崩溃的情况下也可以申请破产保护。WM上游团队首席分析师Alex Beeker表示：“切萨皮克能源公司的这一申请破产保护已经酝酿了很长时间。不管有没有Covid-19，这种情况都可能发生。”

Beeker说：“如果我用一个词来形容切萨皮克能源公司，那就是“过量”，过量的负债，过量的成本以及在供过于求市场上过量的天然气。

虽然切萨皮克能源公司是过去一段时间里美国能源企业破产案的头条新闻，但另外两家能源企业也申请了破产保护，它们是二叠纪盆地油气生产商Lilis 能源公司和Sable Permian 资源公司。

Haynes and Boone律师事务所的统计数据显示，在此之前，1月至5月期间，北美有18家石油和天然气公司申请了破产保护，其中包括钻石海上钻井公司和怀廷石油公司。

切萨皮克能源公司备受瞩目的破产事件表明，近几年来美国页岩行业“过量”举债，正如哈罗德?哈姆在2017年警告的那样，一些公司最终“把自己钻到遗忘中”。

美国能源行业的融资窗口已经关闭，因为在疫情爆发前一年多，债权人和投资者对页岩行业的态度已经恶化，而油价4年来又第二次暴跌。

在这种长期低油价的环境下，美国越来越多的石油和天然气公司开始寻求通过破产法第11章的程序来重组债务，尤其是在能源行业破产最多的德克萨斯州。

美国页岩行业的申请破产保护数字在增加，而业界普遍的看法是这一趋势才刚刚开始。

李峻 编译自 油价网

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.