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According to The Wall Street Journal, fracking companies are seeing their sources of capital on Wall Street dry up as investors are looking elsewhere given that many of the frackers have been operating at a loss for more than a decade. The lack of capital to keep these companies liquid is forcing them to cut costs and plan for slower growth. This is particularly true for small companies with lots of debt, but it is also happening to larger companies that are desperately trying to meet earnings targets set by their Wall Street lenders. There are some ominous signs of trouble ahead for shale, as The Journal explained:
Frackers raised about $22 billion from equity and debt financing in 2018, less than half the total in 2016 and almost one-third of what they raised in 2012.
Up until now, Wall Street financiers had provided loans when producers were operating at a loss, which has happened every year since 2010. The banks also helped the frackers lock in long term sales contracts to stabilize prices and avoid market volatility and provided them with revolving loans backed by those future sales of oil and gas. Many companies are now operating on tight margins, and investors have made it clear that they have “no interest in paying for unprofitable shale drilling” any longer.
Why This Matters: Oil has always been boom and bust and shale is no different, with producers and their financial backers suffering from a get rich quick mentality that leads to overproduction so that oil and gas flood the market, thus driving down the price. Until now, the fracking companies had Wall Street to keep them liquid during the downturns. It is amazing that these companies are this close to the edge of going under even though recently they have received major “help” from the Trump Administration, which has rolled back environment and safety standards for fracking operations.It seems like the fracking bubble may be about to burst. Yet another reason why renewable energy projects are increasing, which is good news for the planet.
By Lew Milford With its recent executive orders on environmental justice, the Biden administration has put energy equity at the front and center of its domestic policy agenda. The challenge now is to put these principles into practice. That job has been made much more critical with the massive power outage that just crippled Texas. […]
by Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer As the domestic electric vehicle market in the United States continues to hit its stride and new competitors vie in the race to electrify, Lucid Motors has emerged as an ultra-luxury competitor to EV darling Tesla Motors. This week, Lucid went public through a SPAC with Churchill Capital Corp […]
The Texas freeze and subsequent blackouts have given the Biden administration the chance to show the country how it will handle natural disasters, and they’ve already done one thing much differently than the Trump administration: acknowledged the role of climate change. And now, due to surge pricing, Texans are facing utility bills in the thousands of dollars for what little heat they got.
Why This Matters: The Biden administration wasted no time declaring an emergency and stating it would review preparation for future storms.
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