THANK A FRACKER: US oil output to hit record over 11M bpd by end of 2019. “U.S. crude oil production is expected to climb to more than 10 million barrels per day (bpd) early in 2018, reaching that milestone for the first time since 1970, and to continue to surge into 2019 to a record high, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said Tuesday. Production was expected to hit 10.04 million bpd during the first quarter of this year, the agency said in a monthly report. The 10 million-bpd milestone previously had not been expected to be reached until the fourth quarter.”