Crude oil prices are now in uncharted territory.

The black goo reached yet another all-time high today at over $141 a barrel.

Crude oil futures on the Nymex hit a new record of $141.71 in electronic trading, smashing yesterday’s all-time record price of $140.39 a barrel.

Crude oil prices spiked partly on comments made by OPEC’s president that crude oil prices go higher still on dollar weakness. Fears that Libya would cut supply also sent jitters through the market.

The decision yesterday by the feds to hold rates steady in the face of rising US inflation is seen by many as critical to oil’s recent spike.

Energy expert Kevin Kerr is now calling crude oil at $150, according to a report by MaketWatch.

Stansberry Research’s Matt Badiali is not so sure. He says a reduction in demand will bring crude oil prices down…

Let’s look at a simple statistic: Drivers consume more than 60% of all the oil used in the U.S. That demand can be cut… radically. Take my parents, for example. They work about four blocks apart… but take separate cars. That’s an easy fix if gas prices go nuts.

And the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a division of the Department of Energy, thinks the U.S. population is already making those choices. It predicts U.S. petroleum consumption will fall by 440,000 barrels per day over the next year.

That’s only a fall of 2.1% in 2008. But the EIA originally predicted a fall of less than half that. I expect the actual decrease will be larger than even this estimate.

Same thing goes for demand in China. The government just cut its oil subsidy. Guess what? Demand is going down.

Despite crude’s ascent, shares in US oil majors ExxonMobile (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX) and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) are all down so far off yesterday’s close