Latin American Economy & Business - January 2018 (ISSN 1741-7430)

As we went to press on 9 January, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) issued its latest short-term energy outlook, in which it projected that US crude oil production would average 10.3m b/d in 2018, the highest annual average production in US history, surpassing the previous record of 9.6m b/d set in 1970. It also forecast US production to increase to an average of 10.8m b/d in 2019 and to surpass 11m b/d by end 2019. This will be to the chagrin of OPEC and Russia, who are looking to curb production and reduce competition from US oil and gas.