And they agreed that the oil industry -- the first industry outside Asia to suffer when Asian currencies and economies began crumbling in 1997 -- will still be in dismal shape if an Asian recovery doesn't start to take place by then.

"A rebound could already be in the making," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates and a featured speaker at the American Petroleum Institute's annual meeting, which ended here Tuesday.

"The oil industry was the first major industry outside Asia to suffer the effects of the Asian crisis... And the global oil industry would be among the first to respond to firm proof of recovery," Yergin said.

If Asian nations avoid the pitfalls of further currency devaluations and find foreign demand for their goods, "recovery and renewed rapid growth" will comeby 2000, said Dwight Perkins of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, author of a report given at the API meeting.

The region that once fuelled growth in world energy consumption and, in turn, helped oil companies reap double-digit profit gains hit hard Times in mid-1997 and greatly lowered its demand for oil.

One after another, executives at the API meeting, including the heads of Exxon Corp, Shell and Chevron Corp, signalled significant cuts in capital spending for 1999, a direct result of oil prices that have dropped 40 per cent since 1997, largely on slumping Asian demand. On Tuesday, the December crude oil futures contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled up 14 cents from Monday at $13.52 a barrel, but below the psychologically important $14-a-barrel mark.

"It would be tough to make a case that our spending in 1999 would be above 1998's," Exxon's chairman and chief executive officer Lee Raymond said.

Short-term production projects and marginal oil-producing fields will bear the bruntof cost cuts, Raymond and other oil companies' top executives said.

Exxon's Raymond said Asia is showing signs of recovery, at least in Thailand, where Exxon has large holdings.

Raymond said Exxon believes Thailand's "economy has bottomed out and is probably starting to come back."

Asia in recent years had accounted for as much as 50 per cent of the world's growth in oil consumption.

If Asia recovers and buys more oil, prices will rebound. But Perkins said the situation in Asia may linger for much of 1999, a notion seemingly accepted by CEOs here. The CEOs say they are prepared to weather up to nine more months of low oil prices.

Peter Bijur, chairman and CEO of Texaco Inc, said he expected a return to $17- to $20-a-barrel crude oil before the end of 1999. But he said that a recovery in Asia would need to take place first, because he sees North American and European demand for oil as relatively stable.

Bijur and other CEOs, including Chevron's Ken Derr, say any Asian recovery will be modest in thenear term. Texaco's Bijur pointed to the fact that the oversupply of oil took a while to build and will take a while to cut.

"I don't think people are looking for a return to double- digit growth," said Derr of Chevron.

On Tuesday, Exxon's stock lost $1.875 to $70.125 a share, while Chevron's stock fell $1.94 to $80.50, and Texaco's stock slipped 50 cents to $58, all in composite New York Stock Exchange trading. The American Depositary Receipts of Royal Dutch Petroleum also slid $1.3125 to $46.25 on Tuesday on the NYSE.