Global recession fear batters price of crude

The oil price is poised to end the year at barely a third of where it was at the start of 2008 and registering an extraordinary 75% crash from its all-time peak in high summer.

Crude was on the wane again today amid latest news of slumping Asian demand and the gloom of forecasts of a deep global recession in 2009.

The price of oil in New York traded down 57 cents at $39.34 a barrel against the record $147.27 set in early July and a price of about $98 a year ago.

Brent crude traded in London was priced at $40.80, down 65 cents from yesterday.

Weighing heavily on oil was downbeat economic snapshots from around the world.

Not the least of these is a final revision of US gross domestic product statistics later today which is expected to show how deep in trouble the US economy is.

Investors have also been rattled by a sharp decline in exports from Japan, the biggest Asian economy, as well as by a big reduction in imports of crude.

Oil imports in South Korea are also sharply down.

In addition, the fifth interest-rate cut by China in recent months was not seen as a positive financial stimulus for the world's largest emerging economy, and highlighted fears that the Beijing government is overseeing a slowdown in the march of the dragon economy. While the Saudi Arabia-led cartel of major producers has said that it will cut demand by up to 5% to counter the collapse in the demand, the market is now largely ignoring any attempts to put a false floor under the cratering price of oil.

Fears for the global economy also weighed on the gold price.

Gold is traditionally seen as a safe haven in troubled times. However, with some forecasters suggesting that the global economy is heading towards stagflation - where there is no growth and no inflation - the demand for bullion as a hedge against the ravages of inflation has lessened.

In trading overnight, gold reversed some of its recent gains to fall back to $844.67 an ounce, having reached all-time highs in the summer and flirted with the £1000-an-ounce level.