Well, of course they do. While we may be happy with low gas prices at the pump, may this cause problems in the future? I’m not sure but someone has to cover the debt that we see in the graphic here from Tracking the Growing Wave of Oil & Gas Bankruptcies in 2020 by Omri Wallach (7/24/2020).
For oil and gas producers, the second quarter of 2020 saw 18 bankruptcies, the highest quarterly total since 2016.
So far, they’re largely centered in the U.S., which saw a boom of surface-level shale oil production in the 2010’s to take advantage of rising crude prices. As prices have dropped, many heavily leveraged companies have started to run out of options.
If this peaks your interest then a related article, Today’s Energy Predicament – A Look at Some Charts by Gail Tverberg (9/1/2020) at Our Finite World is a good follow up.
