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By Tim McLaughlin and Luc Cohen

OKLAHOMA CITY, March 22 (Reuters) - Nearly 15 years since Enron's collapse decimated the retirement accounts of its employees, hundreds of thousands of U.S. energy workers remain precariously exposed to big, concentrated bets on company stock in their 401(k) retirement plans.

The slide in oil prices to their lowest levels in over a decade wiped out several billion dollars of retirement wealth in the energy sector in the past year. The losses may prove temporary for companies that successfully navigate the crisis, but tens of thousands of employees of struggling firms may see much of their nest eggs gone for good.

In Oklahoma and Texas, workers are delaying retirement plans, surrendering trucks, cars and land in personal bankruptcy cases, or just praying oil prices will recover.

"I just didn't see it coming," said John Thompson, 57, who was laid off in February from Oklahoma City-based SandRidge Energy Inc. SandRidge shares, which peaked above $65 in 2008, are now worth 10 cents apiece. "Because of this, I'm not retiring any time soon."

SandRidge did not return messages seeking comment.

Almost without exception energy company 401(k) plans offered at least 10 different investment alternatives to company stock, their plans show.

Yet company reports and interviews with more than 20 current and former employees at independent energy firms show many employees have not taken advantage of opportunities to switch out of company shares.

Maureen Nelson, who retired from Chesapeake Energy Corp in 2013, said she lost an estimated $100,000 as she watched the company's shares plunge in value.

Inertia and a strong faith in company leadership played a role in holding on to company stock, but so did company policies.

Many energy firms continued to match employee contributions with company stock, even as most large U.S. companies stopped the practice after the Enron debacle, according to several corporate benefits consultants.

The energy industry followed the lead of heavyweights such as Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp, which for years provided matching contributions in company stock in worker 401(k) retirement plans while also funding separate defined benefit pension plans for them.





DOUBLE IMPACT

Smaller companies could not afford to do both, but they typically matched employee contributions in stock. And energy workers often plowed some or most of their own contributions into company stock, benefits consultants said.

"It's not prudent investing," said Lou Harvey, chief executive of Boston-based financial research firm Dalbar Inc. "But employees tend to clamor for company stock."

Typically, workers at larger energy companies would have 20 percent to 60 percent of 401(k) assets in company stock, according to a Reuters analysis of such holdings for more than 400,000 employees.

By contrast, the average U.S. 401(k) plan has about 7 percent of assets in company stock, according to Washington D.C.-based Investment Company Institute.

At Chevron, more than 40,000 participants in its 401(k) plan held $8.9 billion, or 47 percent of investment assets, in company stock at the end of 2014, according to the latest annual report. (Graphic:http://tmsnrt.rs/1RwkqYB)

Chevron stopped matching in company stock last year for better diversification, spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie said. Exxon stopped new stock contributions after 2006. Its shares still accounted for $12.9 billion of the 401(k) plan's $22.3 billion in assets in 2014. Exxon declined comment.

When Texas-based Enron filed for bankruptcy in 2001, employees suffered a one-two punch - they lost their jobs and much of their savings because nearly two-thirds of their retirement assets were in Enron stock.

After Enron's collapse, companies successfully lobbied Congress mostly against proposals to limit company stock ownership in 401(k) plans, fearing billions of dollars of their shares would be offloaded to meet the caps.

"Caps were a bridge too far for companies," said Sheila Bair, former chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a U.S. Treasury official who worked on President George W. Bush's 2002 task force on retirement security.

Still, publicly-traded companies have revamped their retirement plans to make them more balanced, even imposing own limits on company stock ownership, said Rob Austin, director of retirement research at Aon Hewitt.

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