US nearing record oil output

Fuel Fix:

U.S. oil production is on track to reach a near historic high by 2016, before leveling off and eventually beginning to taper in 2020, according to a new federal forecast.

The nation’s crude output will crest at 9.5 million barrels per day in 2016, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest annual energy outlook, released Monday. The United States hit its peak oil production in 1970, with 9.6 million barrels of crude harvested daily.

Advancements in oil field technology — particularly the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking — have helped reverse years of declining oil production in the United States.

Growing U.S. oil production will have an impact on global crude oil prices. The spot price for Brent crude, the international benchmark, is set to decline to $92 per barrel (in 2012 dollars) in 2017, down from $112 per barrel a year ago, according to the EIA.

But after 2017, the agency predicts the price for Brent crude oil will star climbing, ultimately reaching $141 per barrel in 2040, as the oil industry tries to meet growing demand by developing more costly resources.

Rising gas price

Natural gas production also will rise, despite the precipitous decline in its domestic price during the early shale gas boom. The price will remain low enough to propel domestic chemical and metal manufacturing, even as companies sell more of the U.S. harvest overseas, the EIA forecasts.
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These projections understate the US potential because the reflect the Democrats policy of artificial scarcity which is blocking drilling of the East and West Coast and in parts of Alaska and the Western US.  If those areas were opened for development we would easily exceed these projection.  It may happen anyway with the devilopment on private land.