U.S. crude production will surge to a 45-year high next year, lowering prices and reducing the need for imports, government forecasters said yesterday. The U.S. Energy Information Administration raised its estimate of 2015 output by 250,000 barrels a day to 9.53 million, the most since 1970, Adam Sieminski , the administrator of the EIA, said in a statement yesterday. The agency forecast output of 8.53 million barrels a day this year, up from 7.45 million in 2013. “U.S. production levels are astounding,” Bill O’Grady, chief market strategist at Confluence Investment Management in St. Louis , which oversees $2.6 billion, said by phone yesterday. ‘We will see further revisions, because these technologies get better over time.’’ The EIA also reduced its price forecasts. West Texas Intermediate will average $94.67 a barrel in 2015 versus the August projection of $96.08, the EIA said in its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook . The […]