Oil Below $70, a Price Last Seen in June 2007

“This is a real test,” Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, said during an interview on the sidelines of the conference. “Some people will be overstretched and there will be some delays in some projects.”

But if companies pared their investments, they would set the stage for a surge in prices when demand eventually picks up, said J. Robinson West, the chairman of PFC Energy, the consulting company that held the conference.

Many experts have warned that such a squeeze may occur in the next five years, and could once again propel oil prices into triple-digit territory. In the last decade, the growth in oil consumption has outpaced the ability of producers to increase production.