As crude prices crater, threatening a sizeable number of U.S. oil producers who are predicted to fail under continued global oil doom, the current earnings season will be an important window into who will be standing when the dust – and prices – settle. The energy sector is expected to report a 74 percent drop in earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2015 from a year earlier, and even that dismal view reflects the rosy days when oil was selling above $40 a barrel. Currently hovering at $30 a barrel, oil is at a price that is unsustainable for most independent producers, Wells Fargo Securities said recently, naming companies such as Midstates Petroleum Co ( MPO.N ) and Sanchez Energy Corp ( SN.N ) that it said would […]