Based on all announced corporate press releases, the amount of debt and equity issued among publicly traded independent U.S. exploration and production (E&P) companies totaled $4.4 billion in March 2021, the most since August 2020. EIA analyzed and compiled the amounts via Evaluate Energy, a data service that tracks financial information for all publicly traded oil companies. Since September 2020, the amount of issued debt and equity has increased from the previous month in all but one month.