Lack of a meaningful improvement in oil and gas industry credit fundamentals, waning investor interest, and liquidity issues contributed to a double-digit rise in defaults of U.S. oil and gas firms in 2019, according to fresh industry research. That's despite a much improved oil price environment with benchmarks Brent and WTI ending the last trading day of 2019 at $66.00 and $61.06 per barrel respectively, up from levels of $54.91 and $46.54 recorded in the first full trading day of last year. That represents an uptick of 20.2% for Brent and 31.2% for WTI. However, research by rating agency Moody's found that ... (full story)