The United States may lose its top spot among oil producers globally this year, according to economists. With oil prices continuing their slide and Saudi Arabia reiterating its plans to flood the market with oil, U.S. producers are idling rigs and cutting spending plans. Production has only one way to go: down. “I think it’s almost a guarantee that this year it will certainly lose that position,” Emirates NBD commodity analyst Edward Bell told CNBC, referring to the United States. “And it might happen probably a lot faster than we anticipate.” IHS Markit’s Daniel Yergin also expects that U.S. oil production to swing from growth to decline this year on the significant slump in oil demand caused mostly by the coronavirus outbreak that has so far infected more than 700,000 people globally. “We see in this coming month of April what could be a 20 million barrel a day […]