ConocoPhillips, the third biggest US oil company, sought to reassure investors on Wednesday that, while it had to cut back capital expenditure, the $12.5bn it was spending this year would adequately fund projects offering growth and development potential.

The spending, while lower than the $15.3bn Conoco spent in 2008, will finance projects ranging from liquefied natural gas to oil sands to coal-bed methane, with near and long-term drilling and development under way in north America, the North Sea, Asia-Pacific, Russia and Caspian and the Middle East.