BloombergU.S. energy companies have slashed their budgets by 30%.The collapsing oil price has pushed North American energy companies to slash their budgets for 2015—to the tune of $50 billion. That is the difference between the 2014 capital budgets of 66 mostly U.S.-based energy companies and what the same companies have set aside for 2015, according to a report by Citi. On average, the companies slashed their financial plans by 30%, Citi said. Some of the smaller companies went much further: midcap Denbury Resources Inc.DNR, +1.82% for example, cut its capex budget by 50% this year; and small-cap Goodrich Petroleum Corp. GDP, +9.53% cut its budget by more than 70%. Larger companies, with their more diversified portfolios both in terms of geography and business lines, have cut by a smaller amount. Chevron Corp. CVX, +0.57% reduced its budget by 13% to $35 billion, for instance (rival Exxon Mobil Corp.XOM, +0.20% will announce its 2015 capital budget next week.) Budgets are being slashed as the energy companies struggle to contain costs amid a slide in oil prices of more than 50% in a little over six months. Companies are also sidelining drilling rigs at a fast clip, and several have announced layoffs as the world continues to be awash in oil. Concerns about demand have also kept crude prices low. The glut is expected to persist through the first half of the year, at least, since the U.S. is still pumping a lot of oil through more efficient drilling techniques, and it is sitting on the largest inventories since the 1920s. Oil prices inched higher on Tuesday ahead of key inventories reports this week. Sure enough, Citi analysts found that production from the same 66 U.S. and Canada energy companies is expected to rise 6% this year. That is despite Citi’s prediction that 2015 would end with nearly half as many rigs as were operating in October. Echoing Citi’s analysis, analysts at Simmons said in a note Tuesday that the capex budget cuts were “more draconian” than they had anticipated. “A faster, harder, deeper implosion in E&P capital spending will result in a faster, harder deceleration in U.S. production growth and a corresponding sharper, faster recovery in upstream capital formation, E&P capital spending, drilling activity and production recovery,” they said. But it will not be enough or soon enough to prevent more inventory builds in the first half of this year, and supplies are likely to crest this spring, said the Simmons analysts. Claudia Assis