Opec’s efforts to turn around the oil market have traditionally been like steering a supertanker — it is a lengthy process.

Historically, the price of oil has been closely correlated with economic performance. High energy prices have fuelled inflation, hit demand and crimped output. The record price of oil only five months ago undoubtedly played a part in the present slowdown. Yesterday’s announced cuts were dramatic, but until the extent of the economic downturn becomes clearer, the recent slump in oil prices will be difficult to arrest and harder to reverse. Opec knows that the issue of price is one of supply and also demand.

The US Government predicted yesterday that demand for oil in the US, the world’s largest consuming country, is set to level off and is unlikely to grow at all between now and 2030.

Growing use of alternative fuels, increased energy efficiency and a decline in the use of gas-guzzling cars and SUVs is shifting US oil use, according to the Energy Information Administration. In a report yesterday the agency predicted that the use of renewable energy, including solar, wind, biofuels and tidal power, would grow by 3 per cent per year.

Overall energy use is expected to increase gradually but at a significantly slower pace than expected a year ago.

The EIA, the arm of the US Government that produces official statistics on energy, also concluded that US reliance on imported oil will fall. It said that imported liquid fuels — mainly oil — would meet 40 per cent of US needs by 2025, down from 58 per cent.

US oil demand is weakening rapidly as the country slips into recession. Figures from the International Energy Agency this month showed November demand in the 50 continental states was about 18.5 million barrels per day, down nearly 10 per cent on a year ago. That still represents some 21 per cent of global demand of about 86 million barrels.

But US reliance on imported oil from countries such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela has become a major political issue.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to reduce America’s dependence on the fuel and this week appointed Stephen Chu as his energy secretary. Mr Chu, a Nobel prize-winning physicist from the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California, is a proponent of alternative fuels and a developer of scientific solutions to climate change.

T. Boone Pickens, the Texan oil billionaire, has started a campaign to shift America away from its dependence on imported oil by building huge windfarms across a central belt of the US.

Without incentives to further reduce US reliance on fossil fuel, the EIA forecast American CO2 emissions would continue to rise by 0.3 per cent a year, compared with an annual average increase of 1.1 per cent since 1990.

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