After a decade of having ready access to the capital needed to finance expensive, large-scale domestic development projects, traditional energy companies ran into the credit crunch. As a result, these companies are no longer able or willing, in some circumstances, to obtain traditional financing on the strength of their balance sheets for new-generation and energy infrastructure projects needed to meet the growing demand for energy in the United States.
This lack of capital, combined with significant fluctuations in the price of oil and natural gas and uncertainty in the marketplace regarding federal energy policy, resulted in a slowdown of development projects in the traditional energy sector. Nevertheless, there remained a continuing need to develop such projects — including upgrading and building generation facilities; expanding existing pipelines to more efficiently transport oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids; and developing and implementing new technologies to increase the use of renewable and alternative energy sources.
