BP Crisis Wipes $19 Billion From Energy Bonds: Credit Markets

The biggest oil spill in U.S. history has wiped about $19 billion off the value of energy company bonds as investors bet increasing regulation will curb revenue and profits.

Debt sold by energy companies has lost almost 4 percent from this year’s peak on April 27 amid mounting costs from the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Corporates Energy index. The market value of the index, which contains 805 securities of companies from London-based BP Plc to Anadarko Petroleum Corp. of The Woodlands, Texas, ended June 11 at $510.8 billion.