Whiting Petroleum ends bankruptcy after shedding $2.4B in debt

DENVER — Whiting Petroleum Inc. (NYSE: WLL) has exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy, months after becoming the first major oil producer in Colorado to declare bankruptcy under the financial pressures imposed by the pandemic.

In a statement, the Denver-based company said its newly issued shares began trading on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday after issuing one new share to every stockholder for every 75 shares they held pre-bankruptcy.

The majority of those new shareholders were previously long-term bondholders who exchanged their debt for ownership stakes in the company. Whiting previously held a total debt load of $3.43 billion pre-bankruptcy, but now places its pro forma debt as of Tuesday at $425 million.

Lynn Peterson, a former CEO at SRC Energy Inc., became Whiting’s chief executive as previously announced, replacing former chief Brad Holly. Peterson led SRC until it was acquired by fellow Denver-based oil producer PDC Energy Inc. (Nasdaq: PDCE) for $1.7 billion in a deal that closed in January.

The company also announced that former SRC chief financial officer James Henderson is taking the CFO position at Whiting effective Wednesday, replacing the resigning Correne Loeffler.

Whiting was the 10th-largest producer in Weld County in 2019 with 3.4 million barrels of oil and 10.2 million metric cubic feet of natural gas produced from 881 wells, according to Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission records. Its Colorado operations were solely within Weld County.

Whiting was the first of the large-scale producers in the state to file bankruptcy as the pandemic ground travel and fuel demand to near-record lows and tipped an industry already heavy in debt into crisis. Whiting itself cut a third of its workforce in late July, amounting to 254 people.

Fellow Denver-based producer Extraction Oil & Gas Inc. (Nasdaq: XOG) filed for bankruptcy in mid-June after delaying an interest payment of almost $15 million on a long-term debt note.

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