Oil Companies Draw on Creative Financing to Stay Afloat After Prices Tumble

North America’s small and mid-sized energy companies are searching for creative ways to stay afloat as investors smell blood in the water from the almost 60 percent fall in the price of oil since June.

Oil and natural gas companies are straining for solutions before cuts in credit lines and increases in lending rates hit home in April, when banks re-price the collateral used to secure revolving credit lines. Some are turning to more creative forms of financing as familiar sources of money dry up.