Three leading US shale oil producers have announced steep cuts in their planned capital spending, as they set their budgets to respond to the collapse in crude prices.

Last month, David Rubenstein, a founder of private-equity firm Carlyle Group, said he anticipates “maybe the greatest energy investing opportunities we’ve ever seen.” Marc Lasry, founder of hedge fund Avenue Capital, has described energy as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

The impact is not confined to the United States. Oil and gas projects around the world worth $380 billion have been postponed or canceled since 2014.

While tens of thousands of jobs have already been cut in 2015, more redundancies are expected this year as companies narrow their focus.

Moody’s last month also projected average prices of West Texas Intermediate crude at $40/bbl in 2016, $45/bbl in 2017, and $50/bbl in 2018. The 2016 price is down $8/bbl from the firm’s earlier forecast.

"Indonesia is an important country for Saudi Arabia, a rising global economy, we would like to be a part of the growth of Indonesia," Saudi Aramco CEO Amin H Al-Nasser said at the signing of the initial agreement to upgrade the Cilacap refinery in Indonesia's Central Java province.

‘The latest estimates for 2016 show that total investments are expected to amount to NOK 219.4 billion. This is 5.4 per cent lower than the corresponding figure for 2015. The decline is mainly due to a fall of 9.3 per cent within oil and gas’ reads the statement.

“We know that energy demand is growing. We also know that renewable energy will have to meet most–if not all–of this increased demand. Oil and gas will remain critically important energy resources," Mr. Sætre said on Monday. "Even in a 2 degree world we need oil and gas roughly at today’s levels in 2040."

“We have never seen this in the last 30 years, two consecutive years of investment decline,” the IEA’s executive director, Dr. Fatih Birol, told The Wall Street Journal on the sidelines of a Statoil conference. “This will have implications for the oil markets, if not tomorrow then the day after tomorrow.”

The oil and gas industry has cut $200 billion from investments this year as low prices discourage new projects, leading to cuts in crude supplies equal to half the daily output of Saudi Arabia, according to the kingdom’s Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman.