The price of oil tumbled for the fifth consecutive day on Thursday as recession fears gave traders little incentive to see oil at a higher price. Oil closed at a price not seen since January 2005.

Oil, Natural Gas

At 2:30 p.m. close, oil slumped $3, or over 6.5%, to $43.79 a barrel in New York -- one of its steepest declines in recent weeks and bringing the once very expensive commodity down to nearly a four-year low.

The fall comes as stock and commodity traders await a U.S. jobs report that is expected to show continued job losses across the board and continued stress in the U.S. economy.

Economists interviewed by Thomson Reuters are expecting a U.S. Labor Department jobs report, which can heavily move the market, that may show the nation lost as much as 300,000 jobs in November and a rise in the unemployment rate to 6.8%.

The decline comes after analysts with Merrill Lynch (MER) cut their their 2009 full-year forecast by more than $40 a barrel, down to $50 a barrel. Analysts said that, if the worldwide recession takes a bigger toll on China's economy, oil could fall further.

"A temporary drop (to lower than $30 a barrel) would be technically possible if the global recession extends to China and OPEC fails to cut output sufficiently," Merrill Lynch said.

As late as July, oil soared to nearly $150 a barrel on speculation that China and India would continue to see economic growth, and therefore would continue to use increasing amounts of oil, despite economic weakness in the U.S. and Europe.

With today’s decline, oil is now down more than 68% from its July all-time high, and down more than 52% year-to-date.

Natural Gas futures dropped dramatically in Thursday trading as well after the U.S. Department of Energy said natural gas inventories fall by 64 billion cubic feet for the week ending Nov. 28.

That was basically in line with analysts’ estimates of a drop between 61 billion to 66 billion cubic feet, according to a survey done by energy research firm Platts. 

Natural gas futures were down 33.9 cents, or 5.34%, to $6.008 per million British Thermal Units. Natural gas had been below $6 per million btus earlier in the day.

Other Commodities

Wholesale heating oil, which is closely watched during the winter months, was lower by 7.15 cents, or 4.51%, to $1.5125 a gallon.

Wholesale New York harbor gasoline futures, commonly referred to as the rough estimate of the wholesale price of gas, was lower by 7.2 cents to 96.95 cents a gallon - falling below the $1 mark in the first time in four years

Gold was lower by $4.50 to $754.30 an ounce, while silver was lower by 7.3 cents to $9.491 an ounce.