Low oil prices are endangering an increasing number of exploration and production companies. According to a new report from Moody’s Investors Service, the oil and gas industry could see the rate of defaults rise over the next year. The companies in danger of going belly up, not surprisingly, are the ones that already have low credit ratings. Moody’s finds that the default rate for oil drillers with a credit rating of B2 or lower could jump from 2.7% to 7.4% by March 2016. Moreover, distressed oil companies make up a rising share of overall firms with a poor credit rating – roughly 14.8% of the companies with a B3 credit rating or worse covered by Moody’s are in oil and gas. That is up sharply from the 8% share that oil firms accounted for in 2014. The credit ratings agency also said that even if oil prices […]