With the price of crude oil dropping in November 2014, many are asking if oil and gas producers are hedging at the current price levels. The following is a survey of the 30 largest public oil and gas producers and their hedging activities as disclosed in their Dec. 31, 2016 10-K filings.

The following survey provides as much information as possible based on what was disclosed in the filings. U.S. GAAP accounting rules form the minimum disclosures companies must provide in their filings to provide users with an understanding of:

Value of Determining Critical Vendors

As defined in bankruptcy lexicon, critical vendors are those that are vital to a Debtor’s continued operations. A critical vendor provides goods or services that cannot be easily and efficiently replaced, or rather a vendor with a specialized skillset, mandatory safety certification or proprietary product whose discontinuation of service would have a significant negative impact on a Debtor’s operations.

The Royalty Motion, or the Oil & Gas Obligations Motion, is a critical filing for exploration and production companies entering a Chapter 11 Restructuring. This Motion requests permission for the Debtor to pay outstanding pre-petition obligations for the following oil and gas industry-specific expenses: royalty and working interest obligations, joint interest billings, transportation costs, lease/land rights maintenance costs, and in s

Precipitous commodity price declines and high volatility, coupled with high operating costs and high levels of borrowing, led to a wave of restructuring in the energy industry. In the frenzy of restructuring, a company is consumed with legal issues, employee layoffs, salary cuts, asset sales, and workload reassignments, to name a few. When the company emerges out of restructuring, the focus turns to healing.

It is estimated that roughly 300 upstream companies will file for bankruptcy in 2016, and many management teams are curious about hedging alternatives during the restructuring and bankruptcy process. There are various alternatives management teams can take with their hedging programs, ranging from full liquidation to actually increasing hedge coverage. The following discusses the purpose of an effective risk management program, what typically happens to hedges during the bankruptcy process, and the hedging alternatives for a distressed company.