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Sabine Oil & Gas Corp., the Houston-based exploration and production company that merged with Forest Oil Corp. last year, filed for bankruptcy amid falling oil prices, Bloomberg News reported today. Sabine had about $2.5 billion in assets and about $2.9 billion in liabilities as of May 31, according to chapter 11 filings in bankruptcy court in New York. The company continues to discuss a consensual financial restructuring plan with lenders and debt holders. Sabine has sold assets, cut expenses for drilling and new wells and froze wages to cope with a sharp decline in energy prices, according to court filings. “Given the severity of the current market conditions and their impact on the company’s cash flow situation, the company has been unable to right-size its balance sheet through cost-cutting and self-help measures alone,” Chief Financial Officer Michael Magilton said. Read more.

For more on oil and gas insolvency proceedings, be sure to pick up a copy of ABI’s When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy. 

Gas-Mart USA Inc., owner and operator of convenience stores located at Phillips 66/Conoco gas stations, has filed for chapter 11 protection, the Kansas City (Mo.) Star reported today. The petition, listing unsecured debts of nearly $14 million, was filed in affiliated cases in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Western District of Missouri for Gas-Mart, as well as for Aving-Rice LLC, a company based in Illinois, for Fran Transport & Oil Co. of Missouri, and for G&G Enterprises LLC of Missouri. The largest single unsecured creditor listed in the filings is GSA Trust of Littleton, Co., owed $3.8 million. The second-largest unsecured debt is to Phillips 66 Fuel for $2.7 million. The petition certifies assets of between $10 million and $50 million and estimates that funds will be available for distribution to unsecured creditors.

JW Resources Inc. filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday, the latest coal miner to seek court protection during troubles in the industry, Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review reported today. The Knoxville, Tenn., company said in court papers that the decline in demand for coal and a "dramatic" increase in coal mining costs have kept it from meeting its secured debt obligations and left it struggling to operate. Unable to find new financing to sustain itself, JW Resources said it would use its time in bankruptcy to find a buyer through a court-supervised auction process. JW Resources reported assets in the range of $1 million to $10 million and debts in the range of $50 million to $100 million in its bankruptcy petition, filed in bankruptcy court.

The owners of Baha Mar, a Caribbean resort project valued at more than $3.5 billion, filed for bankruptcy court protection in Delaware, blaming delays by the general contractor, Bloomberg News reported yesterday. The four-hotel resort and golf complex, featuring the largest casino in the Caribbean and its own private island, was presented as the most significant tourism project in the history of the Bahamas. But disputes between the Swiss-Bahamian Izmirlian family, which runs Baha Mar, and a Chinese builder caused the project to miss its scheduled opening in March. Construction on Baha Mar, which was to open on March 27, remains unfinished and no new date has been set. The project is 97 percent complete, according to court papers. Baha Mar Ltd. listed unaudited assets of $3.1 billion and debt of about $2.7 billion in chapter 11 documents in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington, Del., where affiliate Northshore Mainland Services Inc. is incorporated. 

Molycorp Inc., the only U.S. supplier of rare earths, filed for chapter 11 protection  today along with its North American subsidiaries to restructure $1.7 billion of debt in its U.S. and Canadian operations, Reuters reported today. Molycorp, whose shares have lost 86 percent of their value in the past year, said that it had obtained agreement for up to $225 million in new debtor-in-possession financing. The company this month missed a $32.5 million interest payment on its senior secured notes, triggering concerns that it could file for bankruptcy before the end of the month. The Greenwood, Colorado-based company listed assets and liabilities of more than $1 billion in its petition in the Delaware bankruptcy court.

The company behind the Local.com website — a place for Internet users to search for local businesses — filed for bankruptcy on Tuesday, saying it stumbled after a sudden drop in traffic last year, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Company officials who put Local.com Corp. into chapter 11 protection plan to sell the 48-worker company, which has patents for the way it generates search results for consumers who are looking for businesses, products and services by geographic area. The Irvine, Calif.-based company said that Local.com draws about 14 million monthly visitors, and took in $83 million in revenue last year from advertising such as pay-per-click, pay-per-call and banner ads. But it struggled after a drop in visitors in the first quarter of last year, which meant that it collected less than the $1.6 million it expected to receive from Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. for generating traffic for the search engines. Company officials weren’t specific about the severity of the drop.

Three days after laying off miners at its Pan gold mine in Nevada, Midway Gold Corp. said that it is filing for chapter 11 protection, the Denver Business Journal reported today. The gold company said in a statement that it will "restructure its business by attempting to sell non-core assets and resolving various challenges relating to Midway’s main asset, the Pan Mine project. The debtors believe that additional time and resources are necessary to successfully maximizing value at the Pan mine, which opened in March but the company said Friday it was laying off miners there because gold recovery "has continued to fall short of expectations."

U.S. gun maker Colt Defense LLC said it has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and that its current sponsor, Sciens Capital Management LLC, has agreed to act as a stalking-horse bidder, Reuters reported today. Colt said that it intends to continue normal business operations through the accelerated sale process with the help of $20 million in credit facilities that its existing lenders have agreed to provide. Sciens Capital proposed to buy all of Colt's assets and assume secured liabilities and those related to employees, customers, vendors and trade creditors, Colt said. Sales of Colt's modern sports rifles and handguns fell 30 percent last year and its cash dwindled to $11.1 million by May 22, according to regulatory filings.

Nirvana, a Forestport, N.Y.-based water bottling company, and affiliates Millers Wood Development, Nirvana Transport and Nirvana Warehousing, on June 3 filed for chapter 11 protection, TheStreet.com reported yesterday. Bankruptcy Judge Diane Davis on June 4 granted joint administration of the cases as well as interim use of cash collateral. A final hearing is set for June 15. According to a first-day affidavit from president and co-founder Mozafar Rafizadeh, the company hopes to sell its assets through a competitive bidding process, but it has yet to file a bidding procedures motion.

Boomerang Tube LLC, a maker of pipes and tubes for oil and natural gas companies, filed for chapter 11 protection yesterday, becoming the latest victim of the slide in oil prices, Reuters reported yesterday. The proposed restructuring will convert about $214 million of the company's debt under its term loan into equity, Boomerang Tube said in its filing. The reorganized company will also issue $55 million in new debt, the filing said. St. Louis, Missouri-based Boomerang Tube, which was bought by Access Tubulars LLC in 2008, said that it had total assets of about $299 million and total liabilities of about $461 million, as of March 31.