Report says oil drilling projects worth $1.5 trillion face delays with low prices

Low oil prices have slowed spending at companies throughout the oil patch and could erase or delay up to $1.5 trillion in oil-field projects, according to a report released Monday by energy analyst Wood Mackenzie.

The report focuses on global oil-field activity, but reflects on tightening drilling budgets throughout Oklahoma.
Besides reduced activity onshore in North America, the Wood Mackenzie report also said 46 large-scale, international drilling projects have been deferred because of the lower prices.

"The implications of this level of reduced investment is huge for the industry's service sector, which is of a size to comfortably accommodate an average of 40 to 50 new projects globally a year," Obo Idomigie, principal upstream research analyst at Wood Makenzie, said in a statement Monday. "We expect just six new projects to go ahead in 2015 and around 10 in 2016." (by Adam Wilmoth, NewsOK.com)