America’s shale boom may have a shelf life

America’s new oil dominance has an end date, according to OPEC, with the organization saying shale oil production will peak by the late 2020s, after which there will be a renewed demand for OPEC crude.

OPEC forecast U.S. shale growth will peak at 14.3 million barrels a day between 2027 and 2028 and then will fall to an average of 12.1 million barrels a day by 2040.

OPEC projects that “the strongest annual increases are seen in the near-term, in which total U.S. tight oil increases by an average of 1.4 million barrels a day” annually from this year to 2020.

OPEC isn’t the only organization that believes there is only so much U.S. oil production can increase. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) expects domestic crude oil production will increase over the next five years and then flatten after 2022, staying at about 11 million to 12 million barrels per day through 2050.

The U.S. shale oil boom has dramatically reshaped the energy landscape turning the country into a major oil producer – on track, in fact, to be the largest producer this year according to the Energy Information Administration.

Meanwhile, OPEC sees oil demand retreating in the near-term, to 31.6 million barrels a day in 2023 versus 32.6 million barrels a day in 2017, but it will rise to current levels, again, around the time that the U.S. shale supply peaks.

OPEC’s shale comments followed a weekend meeting in which the world’s top oil producing nations declined a wide-scale production boost, despite a call from President Trump last week in which he called OPEC an “monopoly” via a tweet.