US producers want to write off so much debt that the sector is on track for another year like 2016, when more than 100 independents succumbed to bankruptcy and the pressure of $58.8 billion in debt. As the Covid-19 pandemic swept across the globe during the first months of this year, more than a dozen US exploration and production (E&P) companies filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Law firm Haynes and Boone pegs the total at 18 companies with almost $20 billion in outstanding bills. That is a mere $5 billion less than the sector dropped off in court during all of 2019 and already exceeds the debt shed in 2017 and 2018.
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