Cheap crude is a double-edged sword for one of the world’s biggest markets. China’s output in 2016 will decline between 3 percent and 5 percent from last year’s record 4.3 million barrels a day, according to analysts from Nomura Holdings Inc. and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. That would be the first decline in seven years and the biggest drop in records going back to 1990. The country is the world’s fifth-largest producer and biggest consumer after the U.S. Oil prices have plunged more than 50 percent since Saudi Arabia led a 2014 decision by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries not to cut output amid a global glut to drive out higher-cost producers. The kingdom was China’s biggest supplier last year, accounting for 15 percent of the country’s overseas purchases. “We expect significant cuts in upstream production as the companies cut output at loss-making fields,” said Neil Beveridge, […]