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A Glimpse Of Things To Come: Bankrupt Shale Producers “Can’t Give Their Assets Away”

A Glimpse Of Things To Come: Bankrupt Shale Producers “Can’t Give Their Assets Away”

Over the course of the last several weeks, we’ve spent quite a bit of time sounding the alarm bells on America’s growing list of bankrupt oil and gas drillers.

We’ve also been keen to point out that the long list of cash flow negative US producers has only managed to stay in business this long because Wall Street has thus far been willing to plug the sector’s funding gap with cheap financing thanks to ZIRP and investors’ insatiable demand for anything that looks like it might offer some semblance of yield.

It is not a matter of “if” but rather a matter of “when” the entire complex goes under and when that happens, the relatively paltry sums banks have set aside against losses in their energy books will balloon as everyone on Wall Street simultaneously pulls a BOK Financial.

Indeed, we’re already hearing the not-so-distant rumblings of this oncoming default freight train as JP Morgan raises its net loan loss reserves for the first time in 22 quarters, Wells Fargo discloses $17 billion in “mostly” junk energy exposure, and Citi dodges questions about the reserves it’s holding against a $58 billion energy book that the bank may or may not be marking to market depending on what the Dallas Fed “didn’t” tell banksearlier this month.

M2M or no, higher provisions or not, the end of America’s oil “miracle” is coming and there’s nothing Wall Street can do to stop it. At this point in the game, no one is going to finance these companies’ cash flow deficits and the fundamentals in the oil market are laughably bad. Storage is overflowing, demand is withering, and supply is, well, “drowning” us all, to quote the IEA.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Puerto Rico To Run Out Of Cash By Year End, Faces $13 Billion Shortfall

Puerto Rico To Run Out Of Cash By Year End, Faces $13 Billion Shortfall

Remember when two months ago Schauble jokingly offered Jack Lew to “trade” Greece for Puerto Rico? Something tells us in the interim period the German finmin changed his mind because while the Greek can has been kicked again, if only for the time being until bailout #4, the full severity of the Puerto Rican insolvency was laid out for all to see moments ago when top officials and outside advisors to the commonwealth released a highly-anticipated report showing that even after implementing proposed economic reforms and budget cuts, the island’s whopping funding gap of $28 billion will at best be reduced to “only” $13 billion over the next several years.

Even worse, as the FT reports according to the report of the so-called Working Group, the Treasury’s single cash account and Government Development Bank would exhaust available liquidity before the end of the year, creating a cash shortfall in late November or early December. In other words, Puerto Rico is Greece, and unlike the German colony, Puerto Rico does not have any negotiating leverage to threaten a departure from the dollar zone, or threaten to print its own currency.

FT adds that “while the government will be able to manage around those year-end issues, the cash crunch will come to a head in June, when officials on the Working Group conceded it would be nearly impossible to tap financial markets. The plan, which will be closely scrutinised by investors who have just agreed a restructuring with Puerto Rico’s electric power authority, included proposals to consolidate the commonwealth’s education department, reorganise the Department of Economic Development and create a fiscal oversight board.”

The plan will hardly be greeted with cheers domestically as it anticipated “austerity” that makes recent Greek sacrifices seem like a walk in the park: cost cuts identified included a continued salary freeze for government employees and a request for a waiver from the Jones Act, which requires shipping to and from US ports to be conducted with American crews and vessels, increasing the territory’s transportation expenses.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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