AFP reported that oil prices sank to 3 year lows in Asia as more bleak news from the world's largest economy signaled that crude could tumble below USD 40 by the end of the year. As per report, light, sweet crude for January 2009 delivery was down by 69 cents to USD 46.10 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by late afternoon in Singapore after earlier trading at USD 45.60 a barrel, the lowest since closing at USD 45.42 on February 10th 2005. The contract fell 17 cents overnight to settle at USD 46.79. It may be noted that oil prices have tumbled about 69% since peaking at USD 147.27 in July 2008. Mr Christoffer Moltke Leth head of sales trading at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore said that "You could see prices testing USD 40 by the end of the year because the economic data is really ugly at the moment. Demand destruction is still very much the concern." Meanwhile, OPEC has signaled it plans to lower output quotas at a December 17th 2008 meeting, adding to a production cut of 1.5 million barrels a day in October.

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