U.S. Lower 48 oil production will continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than expected this time a year ago as lower oil prices impact production and industry capital expenditures, according to recent analysis by Wood Mackenzie. However, a Wood Mackenzie analyst emphasized that the firm doesn’t expect an annual trend of declining production to occur until oil prices remain at $50/barrel for a two-year period. Lower 48 production grew by 1.1 million barrels per day (bpd) during 2014, but Wood Mackenzie expects the rate of growth to decline going forward, with 675,000 bpd incremental production forecast for 2015 and 425,000 bpd of incremental production growth in 2016, Benjamin Shattuck, senior analyst for the analysis firm’s Lower 48 Upstream group, told reporters at a media briefing Friday in Houston. As a result, Wood Mackenzie estimates a long-term impact of this growth to be 800,000 bpd by the […]