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Last year, 42 North American drillers filed for bankruptcy, according to law firm Haynes and Boone. It's only likely to get worse this year. Experts say there are a lot of parallels between today's crisis and the last oil crash in 1986. Back then, 27% of exploration and production companies went bust. Defaults are skyrocketing again. In December, exploration and production company defaults topped 11%, up from just 0.5% the previous year, according to Fitch Ratings. That's a 2,000%-plus jump. It's just the beginning, says John La Forge, head of real assets strategy at Wells Fargo. If history repeats, people...

So, without further ado here are 25 deeply distressed companies, whose banks we found have quietly shrunk the borrowing base of their credit facilities anywhere from 6 percent in the case of Black Ridge Oil and Gas to a whopping 51 percent for soon to be insolvent New Source Energy Partners. [Link to chart here.]

successfully navigated, global growth could be derailed." Of the warning signs, the decline in U.S. industrial production has one of the best track records. The output from mines, factories and utilities has always begun to decline before recession strikes. "Manufacturing tends to lead the economic cycle and it tends to be an indicator of the swings," said Thomas Costerg, senior economist at Standard Chartered. "Manufacturing is struggling." A strong U.S. dollar and weak economies internationally are taking a toll. But unlike past declines in industrial production, today's decline has been driven primarily by the collapse in the oil industry. The...

The Russian ruble has just collapsed to its lowest ever level. It dropped 4% to 82 rubles per U.S. dollar on Wednesday, passing a previous low hit in late 2014 and piling on the pain for an economy already deep in recession. The latest slump was triggered by another steep drop in oil prices -- crude sank below $27 a barrel to its lowest level since September 2003. The ruble often mirrors movements in oil prices because the Russian economy is extremely dependent on energy.

Stuck in a recession and with no sign of a reprieve in the oil price, Russia could quickly descend into chaos if the money runs out, William Browder, a well-known critic of the Kremlin and chief executive of Hermitage Capital, told CNBC. "I don't think you can underestimate how bad the situation in Russia is right now, you've got oil below any measure where the budget can survive and you've got sanctions from the West. Russia is in what I'd call a real serious economic crisis," he said on Thursday. Speaking to CNBC in Davos where global business and political...

The Dow plunged 540 points on Wednesday after crude oil plummeted another 7% and crashed below $27 a barrel. The S&P 500 slumped 3.5% to its lowest intraday level since October 2014. The Nasdaq is down another 3.5%. It's the latest blow in what's already been the worst start to a year on record for the stock market. The Dow is now down more than 11% in 2016. "Despite improving valuations, global equities continue to get hammered," Bespoke Investment Group wrote in a client note. The firm said the appetite for risk remains "awful." Turmoil in China and the crash...

Oil prices dropped to fresh lows during midday trading on January 20, with WTI dipping below $27 per barrel and Brent trading under $28. The crash in oil since December has only deepened the pain for oil-exporting countries, even for those within OPEC. Despite the cartel’s inability to agree on a production target at its meeting in early December, some of its members are clamoring for action. Venezuela recently requested an emergency meeting in a letter sent to the other 12 members of OPEC. That is not necessarily news since Venezuela did the same thing last year, but there are...

The EIA has just published its latest update to the Drilling Productivity Report (DPR), and soon we will get their update to the Short Term Energy Outlook. These are the two documents in which the EIA take a stab at estimating where US production is going, as opposed to where it has been. Weakness in the Chinese economy has hung like a pall on the oil market since the turn of the year and there is nothing putting a floor under the oil price just yet, but to my eyes the decline of US shale production is now well established...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil fell briefly below $30 a barrel on Tuesday, extending a relentless selloff that has wiped almost 20 percent off prices this year amid deepening concerns about fragile Chinese demand and the absence of output restraint.

U.S. stocks traded sharply lower Friday after a slew of disappointing U.S. data, a fresh plunge in oil to below $30 a barrel and a sell-off in Chinese stocks that added to mounting concerns about slowing global growth. "Simply put, we're not talking about a wall of worry right now. We're talking about a mountain," said Ryan Larson, head of equity trading, U.S., RBC Global Asset Management (U.S.). "It's not anything new. It's the continued persistence of global growth concerns," he said.

Bulletin Headline Summary From Bloomberg and RanSquawk Amid the fresh downturn in risk sentiment, there is one standout move to highlight this morning; the USD/CAD ramp through 1.4400 and 1.4500 WTI and Brent are below USD 30/bbl, with analysts noting that the UN are expected to approve the removal of Iranian trade sanctions as soon as Monday Highlights today include US retail sales, PPI final demand, empire manufacturing, industrial production, business inventories and University of Michigan sentiment as well as Fed's Dudley, Williams and Kaplan Treasuries gain as global stocks plunge led by China, crude at 12-year low; 10Y has...

The epic-crash in oil prices has wiped out tens-of-thousands of jobs, caused dozens of bankruptcies and spooked global financial markets. The fallout is already being felt in oil-rich states like Texas, Oklahoma and North Dakota, where home foreclosure rates are spiking and economic growth is slowing. Now there are calls in at least some corners for the federal government to come to the rescue. "It is time to send out an S.O.S., before it's too late," John Kilduff, founding partner of energy hedge fund Again Capital, wrote in a recent CNBC column. In the Kilduff dictionary, by the way, S.O.S....

U.S. stock index futures indicated a lower open on Friday after the Chinese stock market and crude prices plunged. The Shanghai composite fell 3.51 percent and entered bear market territory, while Brent and WTI futures both held below $30 a barrel, down 4.3 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively. The pan-European STOXX 600 index fell nearly 2 percent. Dow futures fell more than 300 points, as the blue chips index was also dragged down by falls in Intel, Apple and Goldman Sachs. Intel reported better-than-expected earnings Thursday, but the stock is down about 6 percent in the premarket on Friday. Traders...

Related Stories Oil dive deepens to 12-year low; $20 warning on China Reuters Oil prices fall for sixth day as hopes for recovery fade Reuters Oil down again to 12-year low; $30 handle looks more likely Reuters Oil slumps towards 11-year low, ignoring Mideast tensions Reuters Oil ends 2015 down 35 percent; long, painful hangover seen Reuters NEW YORK (Reuters) - A brutal new year selloff in oil markets quickened on Monday, with prices plunging 6 percent to new 12-year lows as further ructions in the Chinese stock market threatened to knock crude as low as $20 a barrel. Amid...

Petrol prices could fall back to levels last seen in 2009 in a $10-a-barrel world as major banks say there is no bottom in sight for the world's lopsided market __ Oil prices have fallen to fresh lows of less than $30 a barrel amid warnings the price rout could reach as low as $10 and bring down petrol prices to levels last seen in 2009. Standard Chartered became the latest major bank to downgrade its oil outlook, joining the likes of Goldman Sachs, RBS and Morgan Stanley in making ultra-bearish calls as prices have collapsed by 15pc this year....

Crude-oil prices plunged more than 5% on Monday to trade near $30 a barrel, making the specter of bankruptcy ever more likely for a significant chunk of the U.S. oil industry. Three major investment banks - Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. - now expect the price of oil to crash through the $30 threshhold and into $20 territory in short order as a result of China's slowdown

The oil bust that has cost the United States roughly 70,000 energy jobs has become more severe than any downturn in 45 years, Morgan Stanley said Monday, as crude prices fell a sixth day. Crude prices tumbled below $32 a barrel on Monday, and over the past 19 months have plunged further and for a longer time than even the 1986 oil bust that deeply bruised the Texas economy. Morgan Stanley says the five major downturns since 1970 no longer can be a credible guide as the oil market enters "uncharted territory." "No floor in oil prices has been found...

...Fayetteville Shale play officially bit the dust...tight oil horizontal rig count was down by 20...Bakken-Eagle Ford-Permian HRZ rig count was down by 14. The Bakken lost 3 rigs, the Eagle Ford, 4, and the Permian, 7.

A brutal new year selloff in oil markets deepened on Monday, with prices plunging more than 6 percent to new 12-year lows as further ructions in the Chinese stock market threatened to knock crude into the $20s. On Monday, China's blue-chip stocks fell by another 5 percent and overnight interest rates for the yuan outside of China soared to nearly 40 percent, their highest since the launch of the offshore market. Morgan Stanley warned that a further devaluation of the yuan could send oil prices spiraling lower still, extending the year's nearly 15 percent slide. While China's ructions are spooking...

U.S. oil prices dropped below $32 a barrel Monday for the first time since 2003 on a stronger dollar and continued concerns about Chinese demand. Prices slumped to 12-year lows this month as the global glut of crude that has weighed on oil prices for more than a year continues to persist.