Alaska Dispatch

According to an anaylsis piece in the Fort Worth Business Press, the bankruptcy of Stallion Oilfield Services Ltd. is another reminder of the continuing trouble afflicting companies attending to the nation's oil and gas development. In 2007, Stallion started buying companies that served the Barnett Shale deposit in Texas, and operates across the U.S., including Alaska and offshore. The main factor in Stallion's bankruptcy is the severe drop in the U.S.'s drilling rig count, down 56 percent from Sept. 2008 to June 2009. Producers reducing the number of active rigs is one way they're riding out times of excessive supply and low prices, but that's hitting oilfield services companies especially hard, most significantly those connected to natural gas production. According to Stallion's Oct. 19 Chapter 11 filing, "over the last year the U.S. oil and natural gas services industry has experienced its worst downturn in more than 15 years." Read more here.