The plunge in oil prices to five-year lows already has begun to spark pullbacks by oil producers.
Continental Resources, for example, announced this week that it would cut its capital spending next year by 48 percent from its previous budget, to $2.7 billion.
"It's all part of our plan,"
Continental CEO Harold Hamm told Forbes. "If prices go down, we are going to cut back to save our wealth, which is oil in the ground."
Despite the capital spending reduction, Hamm said Continental will still increase its oil and gas production by about 20 percent next year.
He's not fazed by the current oil bust. "I've seen this six or seven times," Hamm said.
“We have ample liquidity, our total revolver available, no near-term debt, a lean organization with just 1,100 people, production of 200,000 barrels per day and a low-cost, high-margin operation. We're going to navigate right through it."
Measured only by Hamm's stake in Continental's oil reserves, he is "undoubtedly the wealthiest American," according to Forbes.
Meanwhile, legendary energy entrepreneur T. Boone Pickens, founder of BP Capital Management, says that oil prices' 48 percent slide in the past six months will prove to be temporary.
He told
CNBC that Brent crude oil will snap back to $90 to $100 barrel in 12 to 18 months. "The world got along fine with $100 oil."
Oil supply is booming now, thanks largely to record production in the United States, but the price drop will lead to a sharp decline in production, Pickens said.
"Just watch the rig count. You have 1,500 rigs running on oil. Already you have dropped 75 rigs in the last three weeks."
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