The oilfield service sector has been on the path of recovery from the 2014 industry downturn, but just when the industry says things are starting to look up, Moody’s has begged to differ. In a recent announcement, the credit ratings agency said that U.S. oilfield services providers will find it hard to pay down their debt over the long term unless they boost their cash positions in the short term. “US oilfield services and drilling companies’ high debt levels will continue to constrain their credit quality in 2019 and beyond,” a senior Moody’s analyst said. “The largest firms are significantly better positioned to regain their credit strength next year than the smaller ones, though the threat of balance sheet restructuring will persist, particularly for the latter,” Sreedhar Kona added. The latter part of this statement is unsurprising: big players are invariably better positioned to weather the fallout from a […]