OPEC: Oil Demand to Edge HigherNext Year

Dubai, United Arab Emirates (AP) - OPEC expects oil demand to creep modestly higher over the next year, resulting in gradual improvement of the global economy and a growing thirst for energy in developing countries like China.

12 States of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries forecast Thursday that demand for crude will increase by 1.2% or just over one million barrels per day next year. This is an increase of 100,000 barrels per day from their projections for 2010. Existing and new supplies of oil will be more than enough to cover the growing demand, the group said in its first forecast for 2011.

"As a result of the oil market remains well supplied, especially in light of the ongoing increase the capacity of crude oil," OPEC said in its monthly report on market.

The producer group reiterated its position that "there are fundamental factors" such gyrations of financial markets - not an imbalance of supply and demand - will drive the swing of oil prices in the future.

OPEC expected growth to be strongest in the world outside of major developed countries, where it says that the economic situation remained "stagnant."

He sees demand instead of coming in rapidly growing countries in the developing world. China, India, Middle East and Latin America have seen generate much of the increased appetite for oil.

For the U.S., the biggest consumer of oil in the world, OPEC sees demand for gasoline is back to "normal growth". But the Vienna-based organization warned that there is "considerable uncertainty" about the pace of growth.

OPEC assessment of "well supplied" market means that it now seeks to defeat a series of major supply cuts made in late 2008. These cuts aimed at slashing production by 4.2 million barrels a day, is credited with helping revive the engineer lowest prices from $ 30 years until the mid-70's $ - a level OPEC is just hard for manufacturers and consumers because it is sufficient high to encourage investment.

International Energy Agency earlier this week predicted a rapid increase in demand for oil by 1.6 percent next year, also fueled by economic growth in China and other developing countries