Market Extra: Brace for credit shocks as heaps of U.S. oil-field service company debt comes, warns Moody’s

Market Extra: Brace for credit shocks as heaps of U.S. oil-field service company debt comes, warns Moody’s

Brace for credit shocks as heaps of U.S. oil-field service company debt comes, warns Moody's. Shares of JNK, an energy-heavy bond ETF, plunged Wednesday to lowest level since March 2009. Concerns are mounting as North American oil-field services and drilling companies face a $32 billion wave of debt coming due this year through 2024, a worry even before oil prices collapsed to a nearly two-decade low and the coronavirus outbreak grew into a global pandemic.. Now the outlook seems particularly grim for weaker companies needing credit, as drilling work dries up and oil prices collapse to about $20 a barrel, amid rising COVID-19 infections and Saudi Arabia and Russian threats to flood global markets with more crude output.. Read: Dismal oil demand outlook, Saudi-Russian price war lead to 'atomic bomb'-like environment for oil. "The rapid and widening spread of the coronavirus outbreak, deteriorating global economic outlook, falling oil prices, and asset price declines are creating a severe and extensive credit shock across many sectors, regions and markets," wrote Sreedhar Kona, a Moody's senior analyst, in a report Wednesday.. Kona pointed out that smaller regionally or service-focused oil-field services companies "face the brunt of the sector's weakness, and the greatest