The recession gripping the world's developed economies will push oil demand down by 2.4 million barrels a day this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
The IEA said that only 83.4 million barrels of oil would be needed a day this year, 2.8 per cent lower than last year after "much lower-than-expected; economic growth in the global economy", as it revised down its previous forecast by one million barrels a day.
It said: "This forecast implicitly discards a recovery in both global economic growth and oil demand from the second half of 2009 as we had earlier assumed."
The Paris-based agency has also forecast that the demand for oil in developing countries would fall for the first time in 15 years. "Although small, this will be the first contraction in non-OECD demand since 1994," the agency said.
Earlier this month, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) sharply revised down its forecast for growth among the world's developed economies. The OECD now expects gross domestic product (GDP) in the 30 member nations to fall by 4.3 per cent.
The IEA has revised down its forecast for oil demand in these 30 countries by 760,000 barrels to 45.2 million a day, 4.9 per cent lower than last year.
"The pace of contraction is close to early 1980s levels, with a growing consensus that economic and oil demand recovery will be deferred to 2010," the IEA said.
Oil prices have climbed in recent weeks to over $52.24 a barrel on hopes that the global recession may be nearing the bottom, but the IEA warned that weak fundamentals would limit further gains.
