Mounting debt for energy firms as oil prices plummet thumbnail Energy firms have been financing new oil production by taking on large amounts of debt. When oil prices averaged over $100, that strategy made sense. But with oil at $50, most indebted firms are suddenly in crisis. In recent years oil exploration companies have taken on more debt in order to finance their operations. The level of debt in the upstream sector – excluding integrated oil companies like ExxonMobil – hit $199 billion at the end of 2014, a 55 percent increase since 2010, according to the Wall Street Journal . Loading up on debt made sense when oil prices were high. Fracking new shale wells can be an expensive process, but when oil was averaging over $100 per barrel, the debt load for many firms didn’t seem so burdensome. Now with oil prices falling by more than half […]