Canada

Buoyed by an improving steel market, Essar Steel Algoma is now hinting it may be healthy enough to emerge from insolvency protection without a new buyer or outside investment, SooToday.com reported. In addition to reviewing bids from prospective purchasers, company officials "have been evaluating other potential restructuring alternatives, including a potential replacement [debtor-in-possession financing] and a standalone restructuring plan," Rajat Marwah, Essar Algoma’s chief financial officer, said in a sworn affidavit.

In a sign of the scramble it’s become to secure financing in Canada’s energy patch, lenders are revising one company’s debt repayment deadline daily, Bloomberg News reported. For the third straight day, Twin Butte Energy Ltd.’s bankers on Thursday agreed to extend the deadline to repay a C$85 million ($65 million) loan and ability to access its C$140 million existing revolving credit line, the company said in a statement.

A junior oil and gas company in Calgary is blaming an order aimed at protecting a rare Prairie bird for its insolvency, CTV News reported. LGX Oil + Gas says its daily operations and drilling plans were significantly disrupted when an emergency order under the federal Species At Risk Act took effect in February 2014 to protect the greater sage-grouse. The company's Manyberries oilfields in Alberta were subject to that order.

Lawyers in Canada's energy capital Calgary warned on Friday that a judge's decision to grant lenders priority over environmental clean-up costs in oil and gas bankruptcies could lead to a surge in orphaned wells in Alberta, Reuters reported. An Alberta chief justice ruled this week that proceeds from the sale of assets belonging to junior producer Redwater Energy Corp will go first to secured creditors, rather than towards cleaning up the company's inactive oil and gas wells.

Hudson's Bay Co. of Canada will expand in Europe by taking over 20 department stores in the Netherlands, it said on Tuesday, Reuters reported. It is in the final stage of talks about leasing prime locations of the oldest Dutch department store chain V&D, which went bankrupt in December. The Canadian company reported retail sales of C$4.49 billion in its most recent quarter, up from C$2.63 billion a year earlier, helped by its 2.8 billion euro acquisition of German department store operator Kaufhof.

Junior oil sands producer Connacher Oil and Gas Ltd filed for protection from creditors at an Alberta court on Monday, making it the latest Canadian victim of the two-year slump in global crude prices, Reuters reported. The Calgary-based company said depressed oil prices and difficulties accessing capital markets had prompted directors to seek protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).

As fire ripped through Fort McMurray, oil companies severely pulled back or stopped pumping altogether. Production dropped by a million barrels a day, roughly 40 percent of Alberta’s output, the International New York Times reported. While the oil markets have remained relatively stable and production is slowly picking up, the economic blow is significant to a region and a country already battered by weak oil prices and uncertainty over global growth. Oil companies could take weeks or months to get fully up and running, depriving the province of Alberta of royalty payments.

Canadian oil and gas producer Lightstream Resources warned on Monday it could fail to meet a debt payment obligation due in mid-June if it is unable to bolster its balance sheet through asset sales, Reuters reported. The Calgary-based company also said its borrowing base had been cut to C$250 million ($199.52 million), giving it 90 days to repay its credit shortfall of C$121 million or trigger a debt default.

Alberta’s remorseless economic pain has the province leading the nation in increased insolvency, with an 18.1 per cent jump in 2015 over the previous year, The Calgary Herald reported. Among major cities, consumers in a Calgary broadsided by slumping oil prices were the hardest-hit, with a 19.2 per cent hike in bankruptcy and those renegotiating their debts, says Statistics Canada. In contrast, there was a six per cent decrease in insolvency among consumers in Toronto, highlighting a dramatic west to east shift in economic fortunes.

A Canadian rating agency will decide on Friday whether to maintain or cut off life support to Portugal’s fragile economic recovery, the Financial Times reported. If DBRS downgrades Lisbon to below investment grade, as Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s have already done, the country will automatically be excluded from the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing bond-buying programme, of which Portugal has been a leading beneficiary. “A positive rating decision by DBRS is crucial for the Lisbon government,” said Antonio Barroso, an analyst with the Teneo risk consultancy.