Oil, Gas IPOs to Spike in 2017

Next year could be a banner year for oil and gas companies who are looking for fresh equity. According to Texas-based Tudor Pickering Holt & Co., as many as 40 oil and gas companies could launch IPOs in 2017, as rising oil prices spark interest in new drilling, Oil Price reported.

The two-and-a-half year oil bust has burned a lot of investors, with a long list of companies declaring bankruptcy and many more shareholders losing their shirts from falling share prices.

At the same time, investors that timed the rebound just right, jumping into the market earlier this year when oil prices dropped below $30 per barrel, could have made a pretty penny.

Now everyone is much more optimistic, hoping that there is more room to run. The industry has consolidated and with high-cost producers forced out of the market and healthier companies on much sounder footing, equity markets are salivating again at potential new offerings. Tudor Pickering’s CEO Maynard Holt said that 2017 could bring IPOs up and down the spectrum, from new upstream drillers to pipeline companies.

“The number of companies expressing interest in going into this window is really high, and the number of investors saying we would like to see something different is really high," Holt said.

If Holt is correct, and the number of new IPOs for oil and gas reaches somewhere around 40, that would triple the total for 2016. This year only 13 companies went public, offering shares worth about $2.23 billion, the lowest level since the financial crisis in 2009.

As recently as 2014, when oil prices traded in triple-digit territory for much of the year, there were 44 IPOs worth $14.15 billion.