US crude set for record output despite price trend

Chicago

CRUDE oil production from US wells is poised to approach a 42-year record next year as drillers ignore the recent decline in price pointing them in the opposite direction.

Energy producers in the United States plan to pump more crude in 2015 as declining equipment costs and enhanced drilling techniques more than offset the collapse in oil markets, said Troy Eckard, whose Eckard Global owns stakes in more than 260 North Dakota shale wells.

Oil companies, while trimming 2015 budgets to cope with the lowest crude prices in five years, are also shifting their focus to their most-prolific, lowest-cost fields, which means extracting more oil with fewer drilling rigs, said Goldman Sachs Group. Global giant Exxon Mobil, the l…