OPEC and lower global oil prices delivered a one-two punch to the drillers in North Dakota and Texas who brought the U.S. one of the biggest booms in the history of the global oil industry.

China’s Sinopec has become the latest oil major to cut its capital expenditure, after the slide in crude prices knocked nearly one-third from its 2014 profit.

Steady climb in global demand growth prompts slight upward revision of 2015 forecast.

Capital spending budgets are being cut back, drilling rigs idled and staff laid off. The remarkable growth of US oil production, which brought more than 1m barrels per day of additional supply on to world markets in each of the past three years, seems likely to flatten out this year.

In December Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali al-Naimi posed an interesting question: “Is there a black swan out there that we don’t know about which will come by 2050 and we will have no demand?”

“Why do you want to rock the markets? The markets are calm. Demand is growing,” al-Naimi told reporters in Jazan, Saudi Arabia.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has approved Sinopec Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Co. Ltd., a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corp. (Sinopec), to proceed with its plans to build a grassroots refinery in Caofeidian Industrial Zone, Tangshan, Hebei Province, China

A Deloitte MarketPoint analysis suggested large-field projects, each producing more than 25,000 b/d, could bring on 1.835 million b/d in oil supply this year of which 635,000 b/d would be from members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and the rest from non-OPEC productions.

OPEC’s secretary-general said oil prices as high as $200 a barrel are possible if producers fail to invest in new supply.

As the world’s oil producers wring their hands over a global glut that’s pushing down prices, evidence is mounting that Saudi Arabia is more concerned about shrinking demand.