Two projects worth $45 billion announced this month show the world’s largest oil companies are regaining the confidence to make big investments, emboldened by rising crude prices and low costs that promise to trigger more expansion ahead.

After half a year of strong oil price rises, Asian crude demand is slowing and by some measures falling, and many market participants suspect it is not just a cyclical phenomenon, but also a product of more permanent structural changes.

Supply and demand for oil are coming back into balance, and the response of shale producers to rising prices will help determine how high crude can go, Christof Ruehl, the global head of research at Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, said Wednesday in an interview in Dubai. Ruehl’s view that the re-balancing will take until at least the middle of 2017 contrasts with the more optimistic outlook of some industry leaders and analysts who foresee demand nearing supply by the end of this year.

Gas demand growth in the Asian nation, which is transforming into a consumer-driven economy, decelerated to about 4 per cent last year — the slowest pace since 1998 — compared with an average growth rate of 15 per cent between 2009 and 2014.

International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Fatih Birol said last month that global upstream investment fell by 24 percent in 2015 and is set to fall by 18 percent in 2016.

Crude oil production fell 7.8 percent from April 2015 to average 8.9 million barrels per day in April, the lowest output level in 20 months. Natural gas liquids (NGL) production, a co-product of natural gas production, rose from prior year. NGL production in April averaged 3.3 million barrels per day, 0.7 percent higher than last year. This was the highest April output level on record.

Global oil demand growth for 1Q16 was revised upwards to 1.4 mb/d, led higher by strong gains in India, China and, more surprisingly, Russia. For the year as a whole, growth will be around 1.2 mb/d, with demand reaching 95.9 mb/d.

Goldman Sachs said the market had ended almost two years of oversupply and flipped to a deficit.

China consumed about 10.62 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil in April, a record daily consumption volume, according to Reuters calculations based on preliminary government data published on Friday.

World oil demand in 2015 grew by around 1.54 mb/d, unchanged from last month’s report. Total oil consumption averaged 92.98 mb/d. In 2016, world oil demand is projected to rise by 1.20 mb/d to reach 94.18 mb/d, unchanged from last month’s projections, despite upward revisions to Other Asia, which were counterbalanced by downward revisions to Latin America and China.