Dallas’ Cushing Asset Management, a private investment firm, recently announced it will terminate its oil index of publically traded oil producers and trusts due to companies consolidating, filing for bankruptcy or both. The Cushing Upstream Energy Income Index is scheduled to close May 31 after constituents have declined significantly.

Michael K. Hurst of Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst tells the Dallas Business Journal, “While some of the upstream MLPs have ended up in bankruptcy recently, the overall level of M&A activity in the upstream level is pretty strong," said Michael K. Hurst, a partner at Lynn Pinker Cox & Hurst. "It’s just that entities are structured as corporations rather than flow-through MLPs or royalty trusts.”

Read the entire article here.