American Oil Shale companies to be bailed out?

Posted on: March 10, 2020 at 12:43:42 CT

The White House is strongly considering pushing federal assistance for oil and natural gas producers hit by plummeting oil prices amid the coronavirus outbreak, according to four people familiar with internal administration deliberations.

White House officials are alarmed at the prospect that numerous shale companies, many of them deep in debt, could be driven out of business should the downturn in oil prices turn into a prolonged crisis for the industry. The federal assistance is likely to take the form of low-interest government loans to the shale companies, whose lines of credit to major financial institutions have been choked off, three people said.

One of the companies hardest hit was Continental Resources, founded by Harold Hamm, a Trump supporter and an adviser to the president on energy issues. It lost more than half its market value on Monday, though it recovered about 8 percent by midday Tuesday. Hamm’s 77 percent personal stake in the company lost $2 billion of its value on Monday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/03/10/trump-oil-bailout/

Edited by MrBlueSky at 12:43:51 on 03/10/20