The price of oil is down for the third consecutive day. Priced at $93.46 a barrel and down from a high of $147 in July, oil traders are watching the bailout very closely.

However, a Reuters article I found today did suggest something that appealed to my green thinking which was that oil demand really has slumped significantly in the U.S. thus a major cause of the recent dip in the price of oil.

“Total U.S. oil product demand over the past four weeks is down 7.1 percent from a year earlier.”

I wonder if oil demand in the U.S. has actually declined? This is comforting to consider, at least from a purely green perspective, however, I think any notable slump in U.S. demand would be offset by the growth in global demand, particularly in countries China and India.

But not so, according to Paul Ting, of the US-based consultancy Paul Ting Energy Vision LLC.

“The fate of oil prices over the course of the next year or so is very much a function of demand deterioration,”

“US demand has declined by a much greater amount than the growth coming out of China.”

Because oil price has gone from being controlled by OPEC to being controlled by Wall Street, I personally doubt a dip in U.S. demand is affecting the current price. Any further thoughts on this?

(Article sources:

Reuters Article: http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20081002&id=9209870

Arab News Online: http://www.arabnews.com/?page=6&section=0&article=115073&d=3&m=10&y=2008 )