The leading Goldman Sachs oil analyst, who had been one of the market's biggest bulls this year, predicting that crude could hit $200 a barrel, has slashed his 2009 forecast to $45, blaming “incredibly weak demand” as the global economy plunges into recession.

Arjun Murti, the New York energy analyst for the US investment bank, came to prominence in 2005, when he was among the first to predict accurately a “superspike” in prices to more than $100 a barrel. For each of the successive three years, his forecasts were consistently higher - and usually closer to the mark - than those of most of his peers.

However, Mr Murti was left red-faced this autumn when his prediction that prices could reach $200 proved far-fetched. Instead, they nosedived from a high of $147 a barrel on July 11 to $48.50 yesterday.

In a research note published late on Thursday, Mr Murti's team said that it had been compelled to trim its average price outlook for next year to $45, from a previously reduced forecast of $75, because of a “continued deterioration in global oil demand”.

The note read: “Global economic conditions are the weakest the world has seen since at least the early 1980s and demand is declining at an accelerating rate.”

Mr Murti added that demand for crude was so weak that Opec, the cartel of 13 oil-producing nations, which will meet next week in Algeria, would be unable to force prices higher through further production cuts.

“We think that the sharp and sudden collapse in global oil demand exceeds Opec's ability to, on its own, balance markets, and necessitates sharply lower non-Opec crude-oil supply,” the report said.

Nevertheless, Mr Murti also asserted that there were signs that crude prices could be close to a turning point. “We see a growing number of signs that oil markets have entered the bottoming phase of the cycle,” the report said, adding that positive demand growth and shrinking non-Opec supply would push prices to $70 a barrel by 2010 and to $105 by 2012.

“We do not believe oil markets are on track for a decade-plus period of weakness like seen in the 1980s and 1990s,” the report said.

In a separate study published yesterday, another group of Goldman commodities analysts predicted that world oil demand would fall by 1.7million barrels a day, helping to drive oil prices down to as low as $30 a barrel in the first quarter of next year.

“We expect that an additional 2 million barrels per day of Opec supply cuts will be required in 2009, along with a 600,000 barrels per day reduction in non-Opec production, in order to rebalance the market,” the analysts wrote.

Goldman Sachs, which is Wall Street's biggest oil trader, is due to publish its annual results on Tuesday.

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