LONDON, Feb 11: World oil prices made further gains on Friday after soaring a day earlier on a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) that forecast a strong rise in world energy demand, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March gained 20 cents to $47.30 a barrel in early deals. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in March added 40 cents to $44.88 a barrel.

The report from the IEA was "undoubtedly bullish" for oil prices "given the revised demand and production forecasts" for 2005, Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell said. But he added: "The price rally may be short-lived as warm weather in the United States' north east and seasonal demand cycles point to an easing in global demand over the coming weeks."

Oil prices had soared by more than a dollar on Thursday after the IEA raised its estimate for demand growth this year by 80,000 barrels per day to 1.52 million barrels.

The report raised also the IEA forecast for growth of world oil demand for last year, putting the increase at 2.68 million barrels per day or 30,000 barrels per day more than estimated in January.

Traders' attention this week has also focused on US inventory data, which revealed a drop in crude stockpiles of one million barrels to 294.3 million barrels during the seven days to February 4, the US Department of Energy (DoE) said on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, distillates inventories, including heating fuel, fell by three million barrels to 115.6 million. "The larger than expected fall in heating oil stocks, shown on Wednesday, came just ahead of snowstorms and cooler weather this weekend in the United States' north east, the world's biggest heating oil market, although forecasters don't expect the cold weather to linger," analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm said.

In other news it was revealed that energy-hungry China is digging deeper in search of oil, boosting its reserves by at least 25 per cent over the past year as part of a strategy to locate new energy sources at home and abroad, state media said on Friday.

Intensified exploration efforts helped the two biggest oil companies locate nearly 850 million tonnes of oil reserves in the course of 2004, the Xinhua news agency said.

Consumption of crude oil in China, already the second-largest user of oil after the United States, will jump to 320 million tons, an 11 percent rise over the 288 million tonnes used last year, according to predictions. -AFP