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By Rania El Gamal and Dmitry Zhdannikov
ABU DHABI, Nov 10 (Reuters) - The global oil glut is likelyto take longer than expected to clear and may depress oil pricesfor many more months if not years despite steep investment cutsand project cancellations around the world, executives from oilmajors said on Tuesday.
The views from the top ranks of Exxon Mobil, BP and Total were given at an industry conferencein Abu Dhabi as key officials from the Organization of thePetroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said they expect betterprices in 2016.
The discord in views comes as most global majors areslashing their budgets and investments with the aim to be ableto generate cashflows with prices as low as $60 per barrel.
And while major producing nations are also reducingspending, they are often facing much tougher choices to keepgovernments popular.
"I'm not sure we will exit from low prices before manymonths," Total's chief executive Patrick Pouyanne told theconference.
Oil prices more than halved in the past 18 months because ofa global oil glut which arose on the back of a U.S. shale oilboom and a decision by OPEC not to cut output to fight formarket share with higher cost producers.
BP's and Exxon Mobil's heads of exploration and productionLamar Mckey and Jack Williams both said low oil prices wouldstay for a while and BP's head of the Middle East MichaelTownshend said the group saw oil fluctuating around $60 perbarrel for the next 3 years.
The views are more pessimistic than those of OPEC withsecretary general Abdullah al-Badri saying on Tuesday he saw apositive momentum for oil markets building in 2016.
The glut is persisting even though oil majors alone have cuttheir capital investments by a combined $22 billion this yearwhile scrapping some 80 projects, double the number abandoned in2014, according to Mckay.
Townshend said he saw Iraq - a major source of additionalsupply over the past two years - unlikely to be adding to theglut next year.
"It is difficult to see a massive ramp up in production nextyear because of the way the contracts are structured," he saidreferring to ongoing talks with the government of Iraq aboutlower investment plans for next year to reduce paybacks to oilmajors and thus leave more money for the Iraqi budget.
But as the oil industry becomes more efficient it is quicklylearning how to recover more resources from existing fields."The new reality is that giant fields will produce for muchlonger," said Mckay.
Williams said his example of rising efficiencies was thecost of well drilling in North Dakota - one of the key U.S.states behind the shale boom - being down 36 percent in the pastfour years while generating higher production. (Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov and Maha El Dahan; Editing byJason Neely and David Evans)
