Many companies on the teetering on the brink of insolvency find themselves buried under high interest rates and lack of deployable capital due to low commodity prices. Many banks have cut oil company credit lines as part of the semi-annual review by lenders. But the combined $8.9 billion in debt between the eighteen companies still looms ever menacingly in the background.

Oil and gas producers depend largely on bank credit lines to run their businesses. Cmpanies getting ready to restructure are working closely with their bankers before filing for bankruptcy.

As the number of failed operators mounts, the surviving companies are laying the groundwork for what they forecast will be an era of slower but steadier growth in the state at the epicenter of the U.S.’s energy boom.

State-controlled Petróleo Brasileiro SA raised $6.75 billion on Tuesday from a sale of five- and 10-year dollar-denominated bonds, in a closely watched return to global debt markets after the suspension of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.

Chevron Corp on Tuesday said it will slash its budget by at least 17% for the next two years to save cash due to the low crude oil prices.

China is Russia’s biggest single trade partner, with its share rising to 12.8 percent from 12 percent in 2015. Even so, the overall turnover of goods fell by 26 percent last year to $68.1 billion. That means the countries are far off reaching their target of $100 billion in trade.

Socar President Rovnag Abdullaev disclosed last week that Azerbaijan was in the process of negotiating an agreement under which it would purchase 3-5bn m³/yr of gas from Gazprom.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle is Russia’s business climate. While frequently fodder for criticism, there’s progress. Russia has surged by 61 spots in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Index since 2013 to 51st this year.

The rout in crude prices is snowballing into one of the biggest avalanches in the history of corporate America, with 59 oil and gas companies now bankrupt after this week's filings for creditor protection by Midstates Petroleum MPOY.PK and Ultra Petroleum UPL.NL.

Petrobras said that it sold a 67% stake in its Petrobras Argentina subsidiary to Pampa Energía, an Argentinean energy firm, for $892 million. Petrobras had previously disclosed that it was in negotiations with Pampa Energia.

Halliburton’s chief executive has blamed an increasingly difficult US regulatory climate for the collapse of his company’s $28bn bid for rival Baker Hughes, which was abandoned on Sunday.

BP’s own forecast shows global energy demand rising one-third higher by 2035 than it is today, which would be like adding the total combined energy demand of the US, the European Union, and Japan. And it’s BP’s expectation that more than half of this demand will be met by oil and gas by 2035.

The International Monetary Fund said it was encouraged by the efforts of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab oil exporters to repair damage to their state finances as low crude prices slash export revenues.

Within unstable market conditions Rosneft proceeds looking for new sources of increase of the Company’s capitalization, boosting the efficiency of the investment program and its operations. This will inevitably relate to the operations of the central administrative office – we have set a goal to cut its staff size by 20% relative to the level of 01.01.2016.

“With this rule, the Russian government is trying to break the vicious dependence of the economy on oil via the ruble. What’s changing is that the Russian government is signaling to the market participants that the ruble will be more predictable to spur investments into the economy.”