Even as oil prices are rebounding, we are closing out one of the worst years for the oil and gas industry in decades. In 2016, the U.S. oil and gas industry defaulted on $39 billion in high-yield energy debt, more than twice as much as the $15 billion in defaulted debt in 2015, according to Fitch. Many oil and gas companies were able to weather the storm at the end of 2014 and for much of 2015, only to run out of room this year. According to Fitch, one in three U.S. oil and gas exploration companies defaulted on high-yield bonds in 2016. Taking a broader measure of energy companies rather than just oil and gas, one in five companies defaulted on high-yield debt. That stands in stark contrast to the less than 1 percent of energy companies that defaulted in 2014. But it isn’t just U.S. companies. Fitch […]