Some of the largest banks financing U.S. oil and gas drillers have recently reduced their expectations for oil and natural gas prices, determining the value of companies’ reserves and loans that they can take against those reserves. Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, and Royal Bank of Canada, among others, have reduced the value of reserves of oil and gas companies, according to more than a dozen banking and industry sources familiar with the borrowing base redeterminations. The value of reserves estimated by banks serves as the basis for many small oil and gas firms to get funding for their drilling activity and operations. And in recent months, in many cases, this is the only source of funding that many of them can get because the equity and bond markets are practically closed for small oil and gas firms right now. With the lowered value of reserves, drillers now face […]