As the world’s energy groups look for new ways to cut costs to combat the collapse in crude prices, the use of gas-leak sniffer dogs is just one money-saving measure being considered. Across the industry, the scale of the cost-cutting challenge is huge. Wood Mackenzie, the energy consultancy, says $1.5tn of future spending is uneconomic with oil at under $50 a barrel and unlikely to go ahead. As such, industry operators are trying to drive down the cost of new projects by 20-30 per cent. Sniffer dogs — a cheaper and more effective way of pinpointing gas leaks than manually stripping layers of insulation from equipment — can hardly deliver this on their own. But they are an example of how some cuts can be made quickly and simply, according to a consultant working for the big oil companies. From the deepwater fields of Angola to the Gulf of Mexico and Canada’s oil sands, the price slide that began in June 2014 has triggered a rush to cut spending. Companies are already squeezing billions of dollars in savings from contractors to shore up battered balance sheets.