US crude oil production will come close to its record highs in just three years time as the shale boom sends output soaring, according to the government’s Energy Information Administration. The forecast marks a spectacular reversal from the assumptions of five years ago, when US crude production appeared to be in inexorable long-term decline. The EIA said on Monday that it had revised sharply higher its estimates of future US crude output to about 9.5m barrels a day in 2016. That is very close to the previous peak in US production of 9.6m b/d in 1970 and almost double its low point of 5m b/d in 2008. The prediction, made in the EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook , shows how improvements in the techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing – “fracking” – made economic by higher oil prices have unlocked oil and gas reserves that were not previously commercially […]