Worrying about how to sustain a dividend in the current oil price collapse is a nice problem to have, compared with the straits in which some companies find themselves. But the dividend conundrum also opens the door to issues down the road, including producers’ capacity to reinvest and drive organic growth and their potential appetite for M&A in the medium term.

Dividend payment by the majors and other energy producers has at least two effects: one is providing a yield to income-oriented investors; the second, other things being equal, is limiting cash flow that otherwise would be available for reinvestment via the drillbit, acquisitions, buybacks of stock or debt, etc. Simple, but meaningful.

With many majors telling investors that their dividends are not at risk, the steep decline in commodity prices has produced an even starker drop in cash flow available to producers, post-dividend, for reinvestment. Relative to a given capex level, a lower oil price widens what may already be a sizeable cash-flow shortfall—at times papered over with debt—and typically triggers further cuts in spending to match capex more closely with falling cash flow.

For example, when the Brent futures strip last year was around $60/bbl, Simmons & Co. International calculated that, assuming a 15% cut in capex from the prior year, the cash-flow deficit in 2016 for the majors and eight other large producers under its coverage totaled about $44 billion. This represented some 25% of the companies’ collective organic cash flow.

However, in a later low-$40/bbl oil price environment, and leaving capex levels unchanged, the cash-flow shortfall projected for the producer group in 2016 ballooned to $68 billion, translating to as much as 43% of organic cash flow, according to Simmons. Given the magnitude of the shortage, modeling an additional reduction in capex—revised to 20%, up from 15%—was only “reasonable.” Even then, however, the cash-flow deficit came to $53 billion, or 37% of organic cash flow.

And yet, said Simmons, “2016 dividend payouts will likely represent the highest portion of organic cash flow in over 30 years.”

To make matters worse, “the supermajors and national oil companies have been unable to organically cover their dividend payments since 2013, despite oil averaging about $100/bbl,” according to Simmons. Also, the firm noted, organic reserve replacement for the supermajors fell to 82% in 2014 and over the last five years has averaged 88%.

Cash dividends for the supermajors (plus British Gas Plc) in 2016 are estimated at $41 billion, or $48 billion if adjusted for dividends paid in stock versus cash, according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. Capex to be spent by U.S. producers, for perspective, is forecast at $89.6 billion, while international capex is projected at $339.4 billion, according to Cowen & Co.’s capex survey.

What if, as appears likely, capex is falling below levels that can sustainably grow production?

“M&A is inevitable,” according to Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co., even if it is unlikely to happen overnight. But as industry conditions recover—and cash-flow preservation and dividend yield become less pressing—the priority of “value over volume” will have to give way to plans for growth.

Recalling that the integrated sector “couldn’t grow oil production over the last five years in a $100/bbl world,” Tudor, Pickering said that the sector faced a longer- term growth issue, “as exploration success has been dire and integrateds have low exposure to U.S. onshore. Capex cuts and project deferrals mean long-term production declines will kick in.”

Simmons offered a similar prediction, calling the logic that the supermajors will want to increase their U.S. unconventional exposure “via material acquisition obvious and compelling.”

The supermajors, said Simmons, “are underweight U.S. unconventional, they are struggling to replace reserves, international oil finding and development costs have ballooned, frontier exploration programs have proven largely disappointing and post-2018 growth visibility is exceedingly challenged.”

M&A may not come as quickly as some investors might wish, the firms said.

The majors may be more active in dealmaking 18 to 24 months from now, when concern over a shortfall of near-term growth prospects—due to project deferrals—is likely to mount, said one long-time company executive. “Prices will rebound, and the markets will ask, ‘Where’s your growth?’ And if your growth isn’t there, you’re going to have to go and buy it.”