Geologist Arthur Berman, who has been skeptical about the shale boom, warned on Thursday that the Permian’s best years are gone and that the most productive U.S. shale play has just seven years of proven oil reserves left. “The best years are behind us,” Bloomberg quoted Berman as saying at the Texas Energy Council’s annual gathering in Dallas. The Eagle Ford is not looking good, either, according to Berman, who is now working as an industry consultant, and whose pessimistic outlook is based on analyses of data about reserves and production from more than a dozen prominent U.S. shale companies. “The growth is done,” he said at the gathering. Those who think that the U.S. shale production could add significant crude oil supply to the global market are in for a disappointment, according to Berman. “The reserves are respectable but they ain’t great and ain’t going to save the […]