kent escalate: ATP Oil & Gas files for bankruptcy

Saturday, August 18, 2012

ATP Oil & Gas files for bankruptcy

ATP Oil & Gas filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday.?

ATP Oil & Gas Corp. (Nasdaq: ATPG) filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District of Texas on Friday.

The Houston-based company was facing falling production and an $89 million interest payment in November. The company had previously arranged a $700 million revolving credit facility.

Bloomberg is reporting the Chapter 11 petition showed $3.6 billion in assets and $3.5 billion in debt. Earlier this month, Standard & Poor?s had downgraded the company to a CCC rating, meaning analysts found it vulnerable to default.

"ATP expects its oil and gas operations to continue in the ordinary course throughout the reorganization process and sees the reorganization as a helpful step towards deleveraging the company to position it for future development of its assets," the company said in a Friday statement.

From the first quarter of 2007 to the same period in 2010, the company had a stockholder equity deficit of $34 million and long-term debt of $2 billion in the first quarter.

The oil and natural gas firm was founded in 1991. It produces oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico and the Mediterranean and North seas.

ATP notes that the moratoria on drilling and related activities in the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon disaster prevented it from bringing six wells to production. Three of those wells have yet to be drilled, ATP said in the Friday statement.

"Had ATP been allowed to drill and complete these wells, ATP believes it would have provided a material production change in 2010 continuing to today," the company said in the statement.

ATP shares were trading at 46 cents at closing on Friday.