| GEO Business | | Oil prices rebound despite gloomy IEA forecast | Updated at: 1617 PST, Thursday, December 11, 2008
 NEW YORK: Oil prices rallied Thursday as traders set aside news that the International Energy Agency has forecast falling global oil demand this year for the first time since 1983 due to the world economic slowdown.
Light sweet crude for delivery in January climbed 1.25 dollars to 44.77 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX).
On London's Inter Continental Exchange (ICE), Brent North Sea crude for January rose 1.29 dollars to 43.69 dollars.
The IEA added that demand would grow again to a downward revised 86.3 million bpd in 2009, basing its forecasts on International Monetary Fund projections for a pick-up in the global economy next year.
In its previous report, the IEA, which seeks to coordinate energy policies in leading industrialised countries, had predicted oil demand for this year and next at 86.2 million and 86.5 million bpd, respectively. |  |
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