Don't talk of an oil price crash because we might get one if the world economy goes into a tailspin. You might have heard such a comment at the Opec meeting last night in whispered conversations after the Islamic delegates broke their Ramadan fast.

An oil price crash should be feared because of what it truly implies — plummeting demand for energy, not only in the West but in Asia. It would imply a worldwide recession in manufacturing — assembly plants shutting down from Thailand to Taiwan and the frightening political and social consequences of mass Asian unemployment.

It is the demand from Asian workshops that put the furnace in the oil drum and that ravenous appetite has finally crowded out Western consumers. At $147 a barrel, the price at which US Light Crude peaked in July, we can no longer afford our extravagant lifestyles. In the United States and Europe, people are driving and flying less. That has tipped the price of crude into a gentle slide. What moderate Opec producers, such as Saudi Arabia, want to avoid is a rout.

So do we. Tempting though it sounds, we need a collapse in the oil price like a hole in the head. It would be temporary and illusory and followed by an even more damaging escalation than last summer's oil price explosion. It would create havoc with oil industry investments. Less than two years ago, the oil price was $52 per barrel, half the current level, but the world has changed utterly and we are now dependent on oil barrels that cost as much as $50 to produce.

Outside Opec, the oil industry is failing to produce more; a collapse in crude prices would end further oil sand excavation in Canada and make it uneconomic to explore in the Arctic and in deep water off the coasts of Africa and Brazil.

We should be flung back into the lap of Opec, the last source of cheap oil. Even then, Saudi Arabia requires about $60 per barrel to pay its social security bills; it is a fair assumption that a price rout would kill investment in Opec states, leading to an early oil production peak and prices of $200 or more.

The horrible truth is that our 21st-century ghoul, $150 oil, has been the ghost of Christmas future. It is a warning that we must take to heart. We must plan, build nuclear power stations, make friends with difficult people, build infrastructure and invest in energy research.

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