There is no cure for low oil prices like low oil prices, and the reasons this is true are already readily apparent as crude struggles to stay above $45 a barrel.

While US output has so far kept growing thanks to wells recently drilled or brought on line, the realities of shale decline curves make it very likely that growth will slow dramatically this year.

The oil rig count is already falling rapidly from its October record, and the capital spending cuts announced so far have impressed with their ruthlessness and speed.

That means a higher proportion of the surviving capex budgets will be spent compensating for the rapid natural decline of shale wells already on line, leaving much less available to obtain production increases. The best operators in the best spots are still promising to add to output while slashing costs.

But, based on the latest forecast from the U.S. Energy Information Agency, overall domestic production will be largely flat in the first half of the year based on an assumed crude price near current levels. Meanwhile, consumption is expected to increase by 1.4% in the U.S. this year and globally by approximately 1 million barrels per day in both 2015 and 2016. The EIA expects global consumption to catch up to the global production sometime this fall, though that will still leave the world awash with near record amounts of stored crude. At some point after that, WTI crude is expected by the EIA to begin its rise from the projected average of $55/bbl this year to $71/bbl in 2016.

This is hardly the V-shaped rebound that some diehard oil bulls like Boone Pickens still expect, but then the EIA does not like to go out on a limb.

But while crude could always change direction in a flash like any commodity, a full recovery by energy equities this year seems highly improbable.

In addition to the immediate cash flow drain from low energy prices, shale drillers will face reduced valuations for the foreseeable future as marginal global suppliers of last resort. There’s less predictability in that role than in the recently discarded view of U.S. shale as a growth industry catering to limitless global demand.

Moreover, the sheer speed of the decline suffered by energy stocks this fall has trapped many investors who still haven’t sold and may now regret it. Such weak trapped longs will provide lots of overhead supply as they sell into future rallies.

This calculus has implications for investment strategy. First, as noted in the 2014 results summary, it argues for a smaller and more defensive portfolio managed nimbly enough to take advantage of the coming opportunities. Second, patience seems called for with regard to the midstream providers well insulated against short-term volatility in energy prices. Third, it’s pretty late in the game to minimize one’s overall exposure to energy. So even as we purge our portfolios of some recent disasters, we’ll continue to suggest alternatives with better prospects.

The pruning starts with two small-cap Bakken drillers whose acreage is clearly no longer profitable at the current price and perhaps a significantly higher one as well. Oasis Petroleum (NYSE: OAS) and Emerald Oil (NYSE: EOX) made sense with crude at $90 but their prospect dim dramatically even at $60, and Emerald is further handicapped by management that’s recently failed shareholders.

Also leaving the Aggressive Portfolio will be Rexx Energy (NASDAQ: REXX) and Gastar Exploration (NYSE: GST), two other small-cap drillers down big and facing a much tougher comeback trail than just a few months earlier.

Ethanol plays Green Plains (NASDAQ: GPRE) and Pacific Ethanol (NASDAQ: PEIX) are getting the heave-ho as well, their medium-term prospects crippled by low ethanol prices even as corn costs are likely headed higher.

Longtime Growth Portfolio mainstay Core Laboratories (NYSE: CLB) has reached the end of its rope as well, its expertise in evaluating new shale formations very much at odds with what the industry now wants or needs, and its fat operating margins likely facing a diet amid widespread cost-cutting and discount-seeking by customers.

Funds freed from these positions might be profitably deployed into any of our recent 15 Best Buys for 2015, or in other buy-rated recommendations trading below their targets. As of this issue we’ve added to the Aggressive Portfolio Hi-Crush Partners (NYSE: HCLP), a fracking sand supplier offering a yield of nearly 8% from a distribution currently growing 32% annually.

Aggressive speculators with a high risk tolerance ought to consider another high-yield way to play the coming rebound by the midstream master limited partnerships.

The ETRACS 2xMonthly Leveraged Long Alerian MLP Infrastructure Index ETN (NYSE: MLPL) is an exchange-traded note mimicking twice the monthly return of an index representing all the largest midstream MLPs.

The leverage is a risk, of course, but the note’s use of monthly rather than daily returns minimizes the drain of daily whipsaws on long-term performance. If, on the other hand, MLPs follow up their weakest stretch in six years with several monthly gains in a row, as seems quite possible, the MLPL will benefit disproportionately.

The leverage also magnifies the yield, with MLPL currently offering an annualized 12.8% based on its most recent quarterly distribution. The expense ratio is a standard 0.85%. As with other ETNs, holders assume the risk that the issuer, in this case the Swiss bank UBS, fails to pay off as promised. This remains unlikely.

The annualized yield, whether an unleveraged 5.8% in the aggregate from index constituents such as Enterprise Products Partners (NYSE: EPD) and Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) or leveraged well into the double digits by the MLPL, should provide a favorable tailwind for the sector. Of course, MLPL would suffer disproportionately if MLPs have more bad months (and especially if they have more of them in a row.)

But here, too, the yield will be a help amid a dearth of decently yielding income instruments. MLP yields are now some 50% higher than those of Real Estate Investment Trusts (after the latter returned 29% last year.) Utilities gained as much, continuing to yield even less than REITs.

Some respected investment professionals like Richard Bernstein, a former Merrill Lynch strategist who anticipated both the dot-com bust and the 2008-9 bear market, have grown wary of MLPs and warn that they’re likely to continue underperforming because of the association with the slumping oil patch.

We disagree. Prices have dropped far in excess of any immediate effect of lower energy prices on midstream cash flows, and the protection provided by long-term, fixed-fee contracts will help midstream providers wait out the slump without undue hardship. For the vast majority of partnerships distributions are not at risk, and won’t be for years. We’re adding MLPL to the Aggressive Portfolio below $58.