The 10 biggest energy company bankruptcies

RUNNING a multi-billion dollar energy company isn't easy. Just ask the executives in the corner suites of some of the energy companies that have gone bust over the years. Some, like Enron, were brought down because of insider malfeasance. A few, like ATP, blamed damaging government policies, while others went off the rails because of market forces that left the company and its shareholders flat-footed, deep in debt, and eventually broke. Here are the bankruptcies that will be etched into the tombstones of failed energy fortunes for time immemorial.

ENRON

(Bankrupt Dec 2, 2001: Assets US$65.5 billion) Enron grew from a simple pipeline company into the world's largest energy trader by using the Internet to buy and sell natural gas and electric power to help utilities and industrial power users hedge against price fluctuations. By 2000, Enron was worth an astonishing US$68 billion, but when the US Securities and Exchange Commission started investigating, it was revealed that much of the money was based on shady accounting practices and unrecorded losses. In one year, Enron's stock price plummeted from more than US$90 to less than US$1, resulting in US$11 billion in shareholder losses. The subsequent bankruptcy remains the largest in US history. CEO Kenneth Lay and fellow Enron executive Jeffrey Skilling were convicted in 2006 of fraud and conspiracy. Lay died from a heart attack while awaiting sentencing. Skilling is still in prison.