Two recent well-respected and long-running oil industry publications have proclaimed that booming production in North America, particularly in the U.S. shale fields, will hit a plateau as early as 2016 and that production declines will follow soon thereafter. Last week the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) set the decline date sometime before 2020 and this week the International Energy Agency (IEA) set the 2016 plateau date. The boom in U.S. production is set to displace Russia as the top oil-producing country by next year. Had you said this to anyone five years ago, you might have been laughed out...
