LONDON, Feb 17: World oil prices rose on Thursday as traders digested a new Opec forecast of sharply higher global demand and a set of strong figures on US inventory levels, dealers said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March gained 25 cents to $48.58 a barrel in electronic deals. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in March added 45 cents to $46.60 a barrel.

Traders continued to digest a report by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries published on Wednesday, in which the cartel raised its forecast for 2005 global oil demand growth to 2.11 per cent from the previous estimate of 2.0 per cent.

"The Opec's Wednesday report said the market will remain tight, especially at the end of the year," Deutsche Bank analyst Adam Sieminski said. Oil prices closed more than a dollar higher in New York on Wednesday following the Opec forecast.

The cartel said it expected oil consumption to grow in all major regions, but admitted that so far, they do not have a handle on Chinese demand. The predicted sharp rise in global demand would lead to "a world wide race going on to secure oil for future needs and we are seeing the beginnings of a bidding war for Middle East oil", said Alaron Trading Corp's Phil Flynn.

Traders were meanwhile keeping an eye on events in Iraq, after its oil minister Thamer Ghadban said that northern oil exports to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan were still frozen due to repeated insurgent attacks.

Markets were studying also the latest weekly snapshot of US crude inventories from the Department of Energy. The DoE on Wednesday said that US crude stockpiles rose by 2.1 million barrels to 296.4 million barrels during the week ending February 11. -AFP