The 15 Biggest Oil Bankruptcies (So Far)

The pace of oil patch bankruptcies is picking up. According to a new count from Houston law firm Haynes & Boone, April saw 11 bankruptcy filings, the most of any month in the past two years. The headline failures that month were Ultra Petroleum , which buckled under $3.9 billion in debt, and Energy XXI, which carried debt of $2.9 billion.

All told, 69 oil and gas producers with $34.3 billion in cumulative secured and unsecured debt have gone under. Since share prices peaked in 2014, the oil bust has wiped out about $1 trillion in equity, with the Dow Jones U.S. Oil & Gas Index off 40%.

There’s more to come. “Despite the modest recovery in energy prices, all indications suggest many more producer bankruptcy filings will occur during 2016," writes Haynes & Boone. According to Deloitte , about a third of global oil and gas companies, or about 175 of them, are at risk of insolvency. Bernstein Research estimates that by 2019 we'll see more than $70 billion in defaults amid more than $400 billion in high-yield energy debt -- that would indicate that we're only halfway through the bankruptcies.

The biggest failure of the oil bust so far has been Canadian-listed Pacific Exploration & Production, which produces heavy oil in Colombia, and entered bankruptcy with $5.3 billion in debt.

Second-biggest is Tulsa, Okla.-based Samson Resources, which K.K.R. acquired from the family of billionaire Lynn Schusterman in a 2011 LBO for $7.2 billion, including more than $4 billion in debt. In its bankruptcy filings, Samson estimated its value at $1.5 billion.

What’s striking is how little the creditors of some of these bankrupt firms are getting in liquidation. Quicksilver Resources filed Chapter 11 with $2.1 billion in debt. Its assets, in the Barnett shale and west Texas, eventually sold for just $245 million in cash.

Meanwhile, Dune Energy only got $20 million for its oil and gas fields in Texas and Louisiana, against $144 million in debt. BPZ Resources, which operates in Peru had $275 million in debt; its assets sold for only $9 million.

Here, according to Haynes & Boone’s Oil Patch Bankruptcy Monitor, are the 15 biggest bankruptcies (so far).

Pacific Exploration & Production -- $5.3 billion in debt

Samson Resources -- $4.3 billion

Ultra Petroleum -- $3.9 billion

Sabine Oil & Gas -- $2.9 billion

Energy XXI -- $2.8 billion

Quicksilver Resources -- $2.1 billion

Midstates Petroleum -- $2 billion

Venoco -- $1.3 billion

Swift Energy -- $1.2 billion

Energy & Exploration Partners -- $1.2 billion

Magnum Hunter Resources -- $1.1 billion

Milagro Oil & Gas -- $1 billion

New Gulf Resources -- $600 million

Goodrich Petroleum -- $500 million

ERG Resources -- $400 million