North American companies focused on exploration and production can expect the market to deteriorate further as low oil price pressures endure, Moody’s said. “Even under a scenario with a modest recovery from current prices, producing companies and the drillers and service companies that support them will experience rising financial stress with much lower cash flows,” Moody’s Investors Service said in a research note. Crude oil prices entered 2016 on a severe downturn. Though moving up in recent days, the price for Brent, the global benchmark, is down 14 percent since the start of the year. Oil prices are down more than 70 percent from peak levels in 2014, leaving energy companies with little spare cash to invest in exploration […]