The US will become a net oil exporter late this year as domestic crude production surpasses imports for the first time in 18 years, the Energy Information Administration said Wednesday.

Helped by a surge in shale-based output in North Dakota and Texas, monthly crude production has pushed past seven million barrels a day and could reach eight million barrels a day by the beginning of 2014.

LAST week, the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammed Sa’ad Abubakar III, condemned the government’s crackdown on Boko Haram and said that President Goodluck Jonathan should grant “total amnesty” to the group’s members.

David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, recently revealed that his wife, Samantha, regularly berates him for not having enough women in his Cabinet.

Crude oil fell more than $1 per barrel on Wednesday after U.S. government data showed domestic crude inventories rose much more than forecast.

U.S. crude stocks rose 3.83 million barrels in the week to March 1, the Energy Information Administration said in its weekly report. Analysts had forecast a 500,000-barrel build.

LAST week, I told you that my ex-husband and I want Oliver, our teenage son, to go to a British university for financial, familial and cultural reasons and that Oliver is saying that he doesn’t like the UK much and that if we aren’t willing or able to send him to university in America, he will not go to university at all and will apply for a job when he leaves secondary school later on this year.