FinancialIEA Upwardly Revises Global Oil Demand Forecast

RTTNews) - The International Energy Agency (IEA) released its monthly oil market report Friday, revealing that it was raising its global oil demand forecast.

According to the IEA report, the agency's global oil demand growth forecast for 2010 has been has been revised to 1.42 million barrels per day (bpd), an increase of 150,000 bpd from its previous forecast.

The IEA forecasts world oil demand to average 86.05 million bpd next year. For 2009, it expects demand to average 84.63 million bpd.

Due to the upwardly revised demand forecast, the IEA said that OPEC would need to pump 28.4 million bpd next year, which is 200,000 bpd more than the agency had previously estimated.

"While OPEC is presently producing well above output targets, the existing production agreement at least holds the potential to push absolute OECD inventory levels closer to seasonal norms again by second-half 2010," the IEA said in its report.