The steep fall in energy prices will hit investment in oil and gas projects worldwide and the industry may cancel about $1 trillion of planned projects globally in the next couple of years, a senior Saudi Aramco executive said.

“Challenges during down cycles are more complicated today than before...At this moment the global industry is poised to potentially cancel about $1 trillion in capital funding,” Amin Nasser, senior vice president for upstream operations at the Saudi oil giant, told a conference in Bahrain.

Speaking to reporters later, Nasser said the $1 trillion figure included projects that might merely be delayed, not just those that could be cancelled outright.

“What we’ve heard from the industry is that there is $1 trillion of planned projects that will be dropped or deferred over the next couple of years because of what’s happening,” he said, without elaborating on the source of that estimate.

Aramco itself has put on hold its deepwater oil and gas exploration and drilling activities in the Red Sea and suspended plans to build a $2 billion clean fuels plant at its largest oil refinery in Ras Tanura, industry sources told Reuters.

The company’s chief executive Khalid Al-Falih said in January that Aramco would renegotiate some ontracts and postpone some projects because of cheap oil.

King vows schemes will stay

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s King Salman said that the kingdom would continue oil and gas exploration despite the fall in crude prices, and vowed to build a strong, diversified economy.

In a speech broadcast on state television, King Salman, who ascended the throne after the death of his brother King Abdullah in January, also noted the historically high revenues of recent years and said the government would reduce the impact of oil price decline on development projects and continue to explore for oil and gas reserves.