Australia's oil sector is expected to avoid the mass job cuts and financial carnage that commodity price crashes have unleashed on miners.
As crude oil prices sink to new five-and-a-half-year lows, analysts from banks and ratings agencies have begun cutting their oil price forecasts.
Shares in energy companies - worth nearly 10 per cent of the Australian share market - have also continued to fall.
But the chief executive at Australia's second largest oil and gas producer, Santos, has defended the company's balance sheet and prospects.
Santos has copped negative commentary in recent days, including an assessment from Credit Suisse the company's equity was worthless at current oil prices and foreign exchange rates.
Ratings agency Standard and Poor's has hinted at a credit downgrade for Santos, while JPMorgan has warned Woodside Petroleum investors, the country's largest producer, to expect lower dividends this year.
Santos CEO David Knox said the company has the financial muscle to make it to the end of 2015 when its new Gladstone LNG project is scheduled to have ramped up.
"What we have done with this $3 billion in liquidity is make sure that our balance sheet is copper-bottomed and will see us through to the end of GLNG," he told Fairfax newspapers.
CMC Markets chief strategist Michael McCarthy said the fact that the majors had been enjoying strong oil prices for years meant they were financially robust.
The next rung of small and mid-sized energy producers, such as Cooper Basin-based Beach Energy and Drillsearch, should also be okay, State One Stockbroking energy analyst Peter Kopetz said.
Their cash costs of production - excluding some administrative costs - were only about $US30 a barrel, meaning they were still profitable at current prices.
"It is different than in iron ore where the price plunge has meant the higher cost producers are going to be struggling," he told AAP.
"There shouldn't be too much carnage.
"There are positive impacts too, for the airline industry, transport industry and resources sector who benefit from lower oil prices."
There is also more scope for an oil price recovery than in iron ore, because the market is less China-centric and tied to global factors, Mr Kopetz said.
"It is hard to see it at this level forever and it will absolutely blow over," he said, referring to the current stand-off in which some OPEC members are over-producing to hurt high cost US shale competitors.
Some job cuts may come in the short term, and possible takeover activity, with drilling and other contractors to be hardest hit due to producers such as Santos cutting capital spending.
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