The key take-away from the US EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook released [in December] jumps out in the graph below: US crude oil production should peak in 2016 at a level 26% higher than that projected just one year ago. That’s an additional 2 million barrels a day (mb/d), pushing the US total to 9.6 mb/d within three years—the same total that the US produced during its first peak in 1970, as an acquaintance at the EIA pointed out last week. That’s three more break-through years like the last two. Then flat. Finito. As some wag asked last week, is that really a recipe for a continuing oil revolution or an oil retirement party? [1] Data: EIA’s Early Release Annual Energy Outlook, 2014. From Ron Patterson. [A] full appraisal of the challenge posed by oil depletion must extend beyond geological assessments of resource size to […]