LONDON, Feb 11, 2010 (AFP) - World oil prices rose slightly on Thursday, the eve of a key US energy inventories report, as traders digested news of an EU rescue deal for debt-riddled Greece.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, won 79 cents to 75.31 dollars a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for March delivery added 93 cents to 73.47 dollars per barrel.
Trading was quiet, with many investors waiting for the US Department of Energy's crude inventories report being released Friday for a clearer picture on demand in the world's biggest energy consuming nation.
In Brussels on Thursday, EU president Herman Van Rompuy announced that a deal had been reached to help Greece cope with its deficit crisis, but provided no details.
Van Rompuy emerged from two hours of intense negotiations in Brussels to say, alongside German Chancellor and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, that they were joining a full summit of EU leaders "to announce the deal that we have reached".
Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso nodded but refused to expand when pressed on the detail of their accord.
"Positive news on a bail out from today's European summit is likely to provide... momentum," said analyst David Hufton at the PVM brokerage.
Crude futures had risen in volatile trading on Wednesday as investors mulled the prospect of EU financial support for crisis-hit Greece -- and as the US East Coast experienced its second huge snowstorm in less than a week.
The International Energy Agency forecast on Thursday that world oil demand and prices would rise this year, driven higher by strong growth in emerging economies, revising upward its earlier forecasts.
The Paris-based agency said demand was now expected to be 86.5 million barrels per day in 2010 compared to a forecast last month of 86.3, while average prices will rise to 75 dollars per barrel from 58 in 2009.
Global daily demand is now estimated at 84.9 million barrels per day (mbd) in 2009, and thus the IEA is predicting a 1.6-mbd increase.
Demand growth is expected to come "entirely" from outside the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a grouping of 30 developed economies including Britain, France, Germany, Japan and the United States.
"Even the recent record US and European winter snows look unlikely to revive OECD demand -- which remains flat at best in 2010 -- an 'oil-less' recovery indeed," the agency said in its monthly oil market report.
The IEA said this was partly due to slow growth in European and North American markets but also because of a move away from oil to gas, renewable energies and nuclear power for heating, power and industrial processes.
