Oil prices may be headed higher, but a bust like this one isn’t over until bankruptcies, mergers and acquisitions clean up the detritus left behind. Almost two years after oil prices hit their most recent peak at $107 a barrel, most analysts believe the worst is over. Prices for West Texas Intermediate bottomed at $26 in February, and lately they’ve been hovering around $45. We could see $60 oil by year’s end. The price collapse has devastated the global industry, with 350,000 people laid off, $1 trillion in capital spending cut, and trillions more lost to bankruptcies and collapsing stock, bond and real estate prices. Those losses have hobbled the oil and gas sector, turning it into a zombie with just enough revenue to stay afloat but too much debt to recover. Luckily, a reckoning is beginning. Big banks have cut $6.3 billion from oil company credit lines, shrinking […]