LONDON (Reuters) - Oil rose toward $45 a barrel on Thursday after the International Energy Agency predicted global demand would grow in 2009 and on expectations OPEC would cut supplies at a meeting next week.
World oil demand growth would return in 2009 after shrinking this year for the first time since 1983, the IEA said in a monthly report. The agency also cut forecasts for supply outside OPEC next year.
"We knew the bad bits, demand down, but the supply downgrade was supportive," said Rob Laughlin of MF Global.
U.S. crude was up $1.39 at $44.91 a barrel by 5:06 a.m. EST, after surging $1.45 to settle at $43.52 on Wednesday. Brent crude was up $1.35 at $43.75.
The IEA's view that demand would grow in 2009 contrasts with that of the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration, which forecast this week that world consumption would decline by 450,000 bpd next year.
In its monthly report, the Paris-based IEA also lowered forecasts for supply from outside OPEC in 2009, leading to a 200,000 bpd increase in the amount that OPEC needs to pump to balance the market.
Oil also drew support from expectations that OPEC will take additional steps to prop up the market at a meeting next week.
Saudi Arabia told some of its biggest customers it was reducing supplies substantially next month in a move that could bring the kingdom's output below its implied OPEC target of 8.47 million barrels per day.
The cuts imply that OPEC's top exporter expects the group, which has already agreed to cut about 2 million bpd of production since September, to make a further reduction in supplies at its December 17 meeting.
Russia, which would attend the OPEC meeting as an observer amid calls from some members for Moscow to join in output curbs, said on Wednesday it would present its own proposal at the OPEC meeting.
Indicators on the health of the U.S. economy, such as weekly jobless claims due later in the day, could make grim reading for Wall Street and imply a further weakening in demand from the world's top oil consumer.
Oil has fallen by more than $100 a barrel from a record high of $147.27 reached in the summer, pressured by weakening global demand.
(Reporting by Alex Lawler in London and Jennifer Tan in Singapore; Editing by Peg Mackey)
