The shale-oil boom that has lifted economies and made millionaires in Texas and North Dakota will slow next year for the first time since it began in 2011, a new federal forecast shows. U.S. oil producers are slated to increase their output by about 750,000 barrels per day in 2015, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s first projections about the nation’s energy position next year, released this week. But that’s well below the 1.3-million-barrel growth in daily production forecast for this year and the growth in each of the past two years. And lower oil prices – falling, in part, because improved vehicle efficiency has reduced fuel demand – could dampen the incentive for energy companies to harvest as much oil from the dense shale rock, said John Staub, head of the information agency’s exploration and production team. Still, the agency says […]