Having tossed off the likelihood of filing for bankruptcy, California Resources Corp. has become one of the best-performing stocks in the energy sector. The Chatsworth oil and natural gas producer has seen its share price go up more than 101 percent year to date, closing at $39.15 on Sept. 12. According to one analyst who follows the company, California Resources has benefitted from stable oil prices. But more importantly, said Muhammed Ghulam with Raymond James & Associates Inc., has been its ability to moved out from under a crushing debt load. “That is why we have seen the stock price recover so significantly from $14 and $15 six months ago to $40 where it is now,” Ghulam explained. But that was not always the case with the company. Shares of California Resources reached single digits in the early months of 2016, a time period that coincided with oil prices plummeting to $43 a barrel from the previous price of more than $100. Again, when oil dropped into the upper $40s per barrel in summer 2017, the share price of the company returned to single digits in the range of $6 to $8. California Resources was spun off from Houston-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. in late 2014. It is one of three major oil producers in the state in addition to Chevron Corp. of San Ramon and Aera Energy of Bakersfield, a subsidiary of Anchorage, Ala.-based Shell Exploration & Production Co. Inc. Helping the firm’s financial picture has been its ability to pay down some of its debt. The amount it owes had gone from $6.8 billion in 2014 to just less than $5 billion this spring. The company had been using excess cash to pay the debt and reduced its investment in capital projects, Ghulam said. His firm’s main take on California Resources is that the company needs to take serious look at growing its production, he added. “It hard to stop a production decline without putting significant investment in your assets,” Ghulam said. During a conference call last month to discuss second-quarter earnings, Chief Executive Todd Stevens said the company was taking steps to “prudently” increase its capital program to reflect the current mid-cycle pricing environment. “We’re taking a very measured approach, increasing our capital investment by $100 million to an annualized range of between $650 million to $700 million for 2018,” Stevens told analysts during the call. “This includes capital commitments from our (joint venture) partners of approximately $100 million or more.”