Peak oil freaks (like us!) will “get” this story released just yesterday, March 8 2016, Bloomberg News via NewsMax, excerpted, link below block quote). Note that this EIA estimate of daily production, 8.2 million barrels a day, is a full 300,000 per day lower than the EIA estimate in the story from just one week ago.

“U.S.crude production will fall to its lowest since 2013 next year as battered shale drillers idle rigs to conserve cash, according to a government report.

“Producers from Texas to Alaska will pump 8.19 million barrels a day in 2017, down from 8.67 million this year and less than the 8.46 million previously forecast, the Energy Information Administration said in its monthly Short-Term Energy OutlookTuesday. The forecast for crude output in 2016 was also cut, from 8.69 million estimated in February. The decline won’t be enough to boost crude prices beyond last year’s level, though, according to the EIA estimates.”

U.S. Oil output headed to four-year low, etc.

Expect the political pressure for more fracking (and Wisconsin frac-sand) to increase as the oil & gas industries realize that peak oil production is happening again, and apply pressure on their purchased politicians. It’s a desperation move, not a sign of robust economy.

Peak oil freaks (that’s us!) have a special way of reading oil and gas industry stories. For example, what we gleaned from this story about “oil and gas production ramping up in the Gulf”

“This comes as EIA forecasts a decline in total U.S. oil flow, from an average of 9.4 million barrels per day in 2015 to 8.7 million barrels per day in 2016 and 8.5 million barrels per day in 2017.”

In other words, while the story predicts 0.3 million barrels a day increase from the Gulf, a total decline from 9.6 million at Twin Peaks II (late 2014, not the 2015 average) down to 8.5 million in late 2017, in other words a decline of 1.4 million from all non-Gulf of Mexico projects.

In other other words, a decline of 1.4 million primarily from fracked oil fields, of which there are only four of significance to consider.

It looks a lot like Peak Oil Part Deux.

This article notes that

“The government agency projects Gulf production will average 1.63 million barrels per day in 2016 and 1.79 million barrels per day in 2017, reaching an all-time high of 1.91 million barrels per day in December 2017.

At those rates, production from the waters in this ocean basin will account for 18% of total U.S. oil output in 2016 and 21% in 2017, according to EIA.

This comes as EIA forecasts a decline in total U.S. oil flow, from an average of 9.4 million barrels per day in 2015 to 8.7 million barrels per day in 2016 and 8.5 million barrels per day in 2017.”

Oil, gas production ramping up in the Gulf: Here’s why

Part 1

“Impact of the Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion through Wisconsin”
Carl Whiting, WISE Alliance, at Tomorrow River Chautauqua, Amherst, WI Jan. 29 2016

Part 2

“Impact of the Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion through Wisconsin”
Part 2 – The Grand Marsh WI Line 14 Rupture
Carl Whiting, WISE Alliance, at Tomorrow River Chautaqua Amherst, WI Jan. 29 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmWht-ygDKo

Part 3

“Impact of the Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion through Wisconsin”
Part 3 – More pipelines, more land seizure, more abuse by corporation.
Carl Whiting, WISE Alliance, at Tomorrow River Chautaqua Amherst, WI Jan. 29 2016

Part 4

“Impact of the Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion through Wisconsin”
Part 4- Enbridge and Native Lands.
Carl Whiting, WISE Alliance, at Tomorrow River Chautauqua Amherst, WI Jan. 29 2016

Part 5

“Impact of the Enbridge Tar Sands pipeline Expansion through Wisconsin”
Part 5- Enbridge as “Business Entity” Tar Sands oil destined for export out of U.S.A.

Carl Whiting, WISE Alliance, at Tomorrow River Chautauqua Amherst, WI Jan. 29 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzSjOnGFiqY

Part 6 >

“Impact of the Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline Expansion through Wisconsin”
Part 6- Enbridge pipelines as “Socialized Risk” — +Impact on First Responder Resources in Area Communities

Carl Whiting, WISE Alliance, at Tomorrow River Chautauqua Amherst, WI Jan. 29 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jF0dQHaYnAk

Here’s a powerful speech given to Lake Mills Progressives Informed and Engaged (Lake Mills PIE) by Matt Rothschild on February 26 2016.

When you click away to read the whole thing, please be sure to come back and look at a few other blogs posts here.

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LAKE MILLS, WI – Thanks, Leslie, and Progressives Informed and Engaged, for inviting me. I would have come anyway, but the lure of homemade pies made it absolutely irresistible since pies are my favorite things to eat.

I’ve been baking my own fruit pies for 30 years now, and if you need to know, I use a blend of Organic Valley butter and that old standby, white coagulated Crisco, for my shortening, and it works every time.

You know, I could talk about pie all day, or about birds, since I’ve been a birdwatcher for 50 years, and it’d be a lot more diverting than the topic at hand, which is the plight of democracy in Wisconsin.

But that’s why we’re here, and that’s why we all do the political work that we do:

because we believe in democracy,

and we cherish Wisconsin’s historic reputation for clean government,

and we’re appalled at the destruction that the Scott Walker Wrecking Crew has wreaked on our beloved state in the span of just five years.

The fact is, we’re in the midst of a counterrevolution right now.

Our state has been taken over by people who don’t give a damn about democracy.

They don’t give a damn about clean and open government.

They have no respect whatsoever for the public good.

There’s a wholesale assault on democracy in Madison right now, waged not only by Gov. Scott Walker but also by Speaker Robin Vos and your very own Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and by the corrupt justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court – and they’re all doing the bidding of the corporate powers behind them.

When I said they don’t give a damn about democracy, that’s obvious by the fact that they passed one of the strictest Voter ID laws in the country.

I don’t if you saw the recent John Oliver segment on his HBO show ridiculing your own Joel Kleefisch, but it was a thing of beauty. He showed Kleefisch on the floor of the Assembly denouncing people who vote more than once in an election, and then Oliver showed him voting twice on one bill, once for himself and once for an absent legislator. Oliver also showed that Sauk City’s DMV is only open on the 5th Wednesday of every month for registering to vote, and there are only four months with five Wednesdays this year.

That’s how they disenfranchise people. And they do it in other ways, too.

Republicans have also gotten rid of weekend voting before the elections.

And they’ve done away with allowing the League of Women Voters, or anyone else, for that matter, to be deputized to register people to vote.

They even won’t let the city clerks conduct voter registration efforts in public libraries.

Read the whole speech here at Green Bay Progressive