Oil price rout forces companies to slash 380 billion USD in projects

Baku. 14 January. REPORT.AZ/ Oil and gas projects worth 380 billion USD have been postponed or cancelled since 2014 as firms slash costs to survive the oil price crash, including $170 billion of projects planned between 2016 and 2020.

Report informs citing Reuters, this was said by the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie.

Crude oil prices have fallen by 70 percent since mid-2014 to just over 30 USD per barrel as soaring global production leaves hundreds of thousands of barrels a day without a buyer, while demand - especially in once-booming Asia - is slowing markedly.

Oil and gas firms were being forced into survival mode as oil prices fell to levels last seen in 2004, Wood Mackenzie (WoodMac) said in a report today.

"The impact of lower oil prices on company plans has been brutal. What began in late-2014 as a haircut to discretionary spend on exploration and pre-development projects has become a full surgical operation to cut out all non-essential operational and capital expenditure," said Angus Rodger, WoodMac's principal upstream analyst.