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Murphy Energy Corp., an oil and natural gas transporter with terminals in Texas and Oklahoma, filed for chapter 11 protection, with a plan to look for buyers, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Lawyers who put Tulsa, Okla.-based Murphy Energy’s operations into bankruptcy proceedings on Tuesday said the company ran low on cash after completing its Port Hudson natural gas terminal in Louisiana. The chapter 11 filing makes Murphy the latest energy company to file for bankruptcy since fuel prices plummeted. Founded in 1993, Murphy Energy owns 10 truck-to-pipeline crude oil terminals in north Texas and Oklahoma that buy crude oil from producers and transport it to customers, according to documents filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas. Its Louisiana operations include the Port Hudson terminal as well as Port Allen, which is under construction. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

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Horsehead Holding has emerged from bankruptcy with plans to restart its state-of-the-art North Carolina zinc production facility idled just before the company went into chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in early February, the Pittsburgh Business Times reported yesterday. The Pittsburgh-based manufacturer announced late Friday that it's under new ownership and under a bankruptcy plan approved by a Delaware court on Sept. 9, along with a new name, Horsehead Holding LLC instead of its previous name, Horsehead Holding Corp. Horsehead’s environmentally sustainable zinc plant in Mooresboro, N.C., cost upward of $550 million but now stands idled. The new ownership — a group led by Greywolf Capital Management LP — will provide the money to restart the plant, which replaced a longtime zinc smelter that employed more than 500 people in Beaver County before it was closed and the property sold to Royal Dutch Shell for its ethane cracker. While the North Carolina plant was expected to be a boost for Horsehead, the company wasn't able to fix all of the issues that plagued it in two years of operation or get it to its expected annual output.

Pacific Exploration & Production Corp.’s plan to wipe some $5 billion in debt from its books cleared a final hurdle on Wednesday, putting the company on track to emerge from bankruptcy within two weeks, the Wall Street Journal reported today. Following a hearing in Manhattan, Bankruptcy Judge James Garrity Jr. said that he would sign off on a global restructuring plan, which has already won approval in courts in both Canada and Colombia. Pacific, an oil and natural gas producer, is based in Canada but operates primarily in Colombia, where it is the largest independent oil and natural gas company, court papers showed. Much of the company’s mountain of debt, however, is held in the U.S. Judge Garrity, who is overseeing Pacific’s U.S. bankruptcy proceeding, had already agreed to formally recognize the Canadian court as Pacific’s primary restructuring venue, but he had asked lawyers for the company to return to his courtroom on Wednesday to present the final version of the plan before he would agree to discharge any debt. The restructuring plan, which the company says is one of the largest and most complicated restructurings ever attempted in Latin America, erases $5.3 billion, court papers showed. Pacific, which is continuing normal operations during the bankruptcy, said the strategy not only aims to cut debt but will also save it $253 million in annual interest expenses. Read more. (Subscription required.) 

Get a better understanding of what happens when an oil, gas or other natural resources company goes bankrupt. Order your copy of ABI's revised and expanded When Gushers Go Dry: The Essentials of Oil & Gas Bankruptcy, Second Edition.