Source: Houston Chronicle
Houston’s EP Energy filed for bankruptcy protection Friday morning, the latest of a recent string of energy companies to pull the trigger on Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
EP Energy is a Texas oil and gas producer that has struggled for years, finally reaching the tipping point amid continued depressed crude oil pricing and looming debt payments.
EP Chief Executive Russell Parker said the company has debt restructuring deals with several creditors and will work with the remaining ones to develop a complete reorganization so the company can cut down on its debt load and return to viability.
“Like other companies in our industry, we continue to experience challenging dynamics as a result of depressed commodity prices, and we have been very transparent about our ongoing efforts to actively manage our capital to control spending and preserve liquidity,” Parker said.
EP Energy, which focuses on South Texas’ Eagle Ford shale and West Texas’ Permian Basin, was warned near the beginning of the year that it had six months to develop a plan and regain compliance while continuing to trade on the world’s largest stock exchange.
Instead, EP’s stock plunged further from just below $1 per share in January down to just pennies for most of this year.
EP Energy still employed about 370 people in March, but that’s less than half of the nearly 800 employees back in 2014.
The Houston firm went public more than five years ago amid $100 a barrel oil prices. Crude is currently trading just below $60.
EP, which stood for El Paso, was spun out as an independent oil and gas producer after the Houston pipeline giant Kinder Morgan acquired El Paso Corp.
EP’s stock peaked at more than $22 a share in mid-2014 but plummeted along with the last oil crash later that same year.
