One can forgive the oil and gas industry for identifying with fictional astronaut Dr. Ryan Stone, the Sandra Bullock character in the 2013 movie Gravity.

In fact, the industry can best relate to Dr. Stone’s mission assessment after she has made the heart-pounding mid-space leap from the Russian Soyuz reentry capsule to the Tiangong Chinese space station as it rattles its way toward a destructive reentry. Dr. Stone radios that she faces two outcomes. She either lives to tell a great story, or she doesn’t.

Like Dr. Stone, the oil and gas industry is poised at that delicate moment between fear and the realistic assessment about entering the free-fall portion of an oil and gas downturn. With that acceptance, operators can focus on the perennial solutions to every downturn in oil and gas: avoid debt, protect the balance sheet, retain talent, carefully bide time and markets, and look for opportunities to restructure, consolidate, or reposition.

As the poster child for cyclical industries, it’s never a question of “if” a downturn is in the future for oil and gas; rather, it’s “when.” Now that the “when” is here, solace is found in the fact that each downturn leads to transformation and rebirth. In fact, every exit from the four down cycles over the last 20 years has presented unexpected future opportunities.

Low commodity prices in the 1998-99 downturn were followed by the decline in Gulf of Mexico natural gas activity, which jump-started interest in easy-to-obtain conventional dry gas onshore.

After the 2002 downturn, a newly re-vitalized domestic land industry focused initially on directionally drilling tight sands gas in the Rockies, and ultimately horizontally drilling the Barnett, Fayetteville and Woodford shales, laying the groundwork for the unconventional revolution.

Following the 2009 global economic collapse, the domestic land industry evolved from a century-long vertical conventional orientation into a market characterized by horizontal drilling and multi-stage fracturing, first focusing on shale gas until creating an insurmountable oversupply, then pivoting to tight formation oil.

This current downturn is different in that it is a supply-driven event compounded by slowing global demand. Demand-driven downturns, like 1998-99, 2001-02, and 2009-10, are typically V-shaped cycles. Supply-driven events take longer to work out, as the 1985-86 global oil downturn shows or, more recently, natural gas, where domestic rig count has dropped by two thirds, although gas production is rising at a rate far faster than North American demand can absorb.

In retrospect, the industry has been telegraphing this event for some time. Think back to early 2014 when leadership at prominent publicly held oil and gas companies began pounding the table to lift the ban on crude oil exports while pundits began talking up energy independence. Looking back, the industry message was straightforward, even if it was unrecognized. The domestic market was awash in too much light sweet crude.

What’s ahead? As you read this, publicly held operators are providing the first extended market commentary since oil prices turned down in October 2014, with earnings calls serving as a forum to reveal the worst news in the current downturn. Look for operators to cut spending somewhere between 20% and 40% and live within cash flow as they seek balance sheet preservation.

Despite that, operators will promise production volume growth, which is the wrong answer in a supply-driven downturn, so it may take a while for oil prices to establish a firm bottom.

Afterward comes the steep rollover in rig count that is most reflective of downturns, with activity—hopefully—stabilizing toward the end of the second quarter. Sellside forecasts for rig count decline grew from 200 units in late fourth quarter, to 500 units early in 2015, and to 800 units at last count.

For example, reviewing the U.S. EIA’s drilling productivity report, the Bakken and Eagle Ford will have to lay down 50 rigs each to keep production flat, or an activity decline of roughly 30%. Permian operators will have to lay down 330 rigs, or a 40% decline, to halt production volume growth.

Ultimately, commodity price recovery comes when the financial markets understand that the rate of volume production growth is slowing.

Meanwhile, oil patch veterans will be seeking the trends that signal the next evolutionary stage in oil and gas. Like Dr. Stone, expect C-suite managers to demonstrate acceptance and resolve. Regardless of outcome, it will be, as Gravity’s Dr. Stone notes, one hell of a ride.