LONDON: Crude oil prices plunged below $40 yesterday to their lowest levels in nearly four years, as worse-than-expected jobs data in the United States raised prospects of a severe fall in energy demand.

In London, Brent North Sea crude slid to $39.50 a barrel, the lowest level since the January 2005. Light sweet crude for January slid to $42 in New York, also a near four-year low. Later on, at London’s InterContinental Exchange (ICE), Brent North Sea crude for delivery in January stood at $40.20, down $2.08 from Thursday’s close.

Light sweet crude for January was down $1.27 at $42.40 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).

Oil prices have plunged by more than two-thirds since reaching record high points above $147 in July, pulled down by a widening global economic slowdown that weighs on demand.

The tumble in prices is sharply reducing income for oil producing countries. It is “way, way premature” to think that the market has hit bottom, said David Moore, a commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “The focus is well and truly on the weakness in consumption, and that doesn’t seem likely to go away in the next 24 hours.”

The International Energy Agency (IEA) yesterday lowered its projections for global oil demand in 2008-2013, foreseeing annual growth of 1.2 percent rather than 1.6 percent in the face of a worldwide economic slump.

In an announcement, the IEA said demand for oil products should climb from 86.2 million barrels a day in 2008 to 91.3 million in 2013, altering forecasts it had made in July.

The US, Euro Zone, Japan and other economies are already in recession, and investors are worried about an increasingly marked decline in oil demand among the industrialized countries, and a slowdown in emerging countries such as China.

OPEC President Chakib Khelil had on Wednesday said there was no “floor” for the price of oil.

Oil prices began the week sharply lower after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided at a weekend meeting against cutting production, preferring to wait until December before reducing crude exports.