Alaska, once the workhorse of the U.S. oil industry, is being put out to pasture. Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s decision to end its $7 billion search for oil in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska is the latest bit of bad news for a state that went from producing one in every four barrels in the U.S. to an afterthought during the shale boom. “Alaska used to be the No. 1 oil producer in the U.S.,” said Carl Larry, head of oil and gas for Frost & Sullivan LP in Houston. “Now there are a lot easier places and better ways to find and produce oil.” Alaskan oil production topped out in 1988 at more than 2 million barrels a day. It’s declined steadily since then, falling below 500,000 last year for the first time since the late 1970s, according to the Energy Information Administration. Aging reservoirs […]