Christophe de Margerie, chief executive of Total, the French oil and gas company, said he had revised his forecast for 2015 oil production downward by at least 4m barrels a day because of the current economic crisis and the collapse in oil prices.
He noted that national oil companies, which control the vast majority of the world's oil, and independent producers, which play a key role in finding new sources, were “substantially limited in their ability to fund investments in the current [financial] environment”.
Oil prices have fallen from a record $147 a barrel in July to about $35 a barrel today, with the world consuming84m barrels of oil a day. This year is expected to be the first ever when oil consumption fails to rise.