U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the press briefing room with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force April 2, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

U.S. drillers could default on $32 billion of debt throughout 2020 if the virus and Russia continue walloping the industry. The default rate is projected to come in at 17%, according to credit-ratings firm Fitch Ratings. Fitch forecasted a 7% default rate before the virus pandemic.

Meanwhile, oil prices rallied Thursday after President Donald Trump hinted that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told him they might reduce crude production.

Trump said in a tweet that day that he “spoke to my friend MBS (Crown Prince), who spoke with President Putin of Russia, & I expect & hope that they will be cutting back approximately 10 Million Barrels.”

Oil prices pitched upward shortly thereafter. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 500 points after Trump’s remarks. The president’s bold talk provides a reprieve to a beleaguered oil industry, which saw the price of oil fall roughly 60% over the past month.

Natural gas production was on the incline for more than a decade before this most recent hiccup.

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected in 2010 that the U.S. would be producing about six million barrels of oil a day by 2019, not the 12 million barrels of oil a day it actually produced. The EIA made other forecasts that year that did not ultimately come to fruition.

The EIA projected oil prices would hover around $100 a barrel in 2019 instead of $60 a barrel, where oil prices are pegged. The agency was also apparently unable to see into the future and observe how hydraulic fracturing would affect gas production over the past decade.