The estimate is around a trillion of debt relating to the energy sector. Not sure if that includes bonds, but it probably does.
Then there are the impacts to ancillary businesses and entire countries like Venezuela etc.
Sovereign wealth funds of oil producing countries are selling other assets such as equities, Russia selling more copper.
You get the drift.

Quote Originally Posted by Hoop View Post
Yes JB & Daytr... I think if the demise of oil prices stay in the $20's for a long period of time it could be big enough to cause another Financial crisis...

The Argument is that Oil reserves are assets and valued into the business structure....the housing market bust crisis in 2007-2008 wiped out over $7 trillion from the US Property Market and created the GFC .......Ok, the debt structure was dodgy which was the major factor (I highly recommend all investors should see the Film The Big Short)..but $7 trillion is a huge number.
The 2008 Financial Crisis cost the Americans $12,8 trillion*
* Mentally grasping large numbers...The height of a stack of 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) one dollar bills measures 67,866 miles. This would reach more than one fourth the way from the earth to the moon.

I get email from John Mauldin and his recent newsletter made me realise why equity markets are so upset with super low Oil prices...
John's article starts off with someones screengrab from Twitter



Hmmmm...From doing the simple math...prolonged low oil prices doesn't sound like good scenario for the Global economy does it?