Oil up $2 after overnight slump

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By Chris Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil recovered more than $2 a barrel to rise above $44 on Wednesday after an overnight slump by 4 percent on grim forecasts of lower U.S. demand.

The market is looking to Wednesday's weekly U.S. inventory report that may show rising crude stocks, and then to OPEC's December 17 meeting where the group is expected to cut more output.

U.S. crude for January delivery rose $2.28 to $44.35 a barrel by 1230 GMT. On Tuesday oil fell $1.64, or 3.75 percent, to settle near a four-year low of $42.07 a barrel.

London Brent crude was up $2.00 at $43.53.

Analysts said gasoline pump purchase data in the United States on Tuesday showed its first year-on-year increase since April, with sales up 0.3 percent in the week ending December 5.

"We can't really talk about 'demand destruction' in the U.S. anymore," said Olivier Jacob, an analyst at Petromatrix.

The Mastercard data is an estimate based of gasoline pump sales and differs from the U.S. Department of Energy's weekly demand data, which is an implied estimate at loading terminals.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Tuesday said it expected global oil demand to fall 50,000 barrels per day in 2008 and 450,000 bpd in 2009, marking the first drop in world oil demand year-to-year since 1983.

The lower forecast came as EIA revised its 2009 world GDP growth estimate down to 0.5 percent from 1.8 percent last month.

The EIA's weekly inventory data due at 1535 GMT could show that crude stocks rose 1.0 million barrels, according to an expanded poll of 13 analysts by Reuters.

GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS

Asian stocks rallied more than 3 percent to a one-month high on Wednesday on hopes governments worldwide would help out ailing industries and implement stimulus measures as they combat a deepening financial crisis.

But overall economic indicators showed little in the way of optimism for the beginnings of a global recovery, instead pointing at worsening demand and a murky future.

A plunge in China's wholesale inflation rate further dented hopes resilience there would ease recession's pains elsewhere.

The World Bank predicted on Wednesday that China's economy would grow by 7.5 percent next year and 8.5 percent in 2010, far below the expected 9.4 percent for the current year and the 11.9 percent clocked in 2007.

"The only world supply and demand outlook that moves the market is the one from the IEA (Paris) and that will be published tomorrow morning," Olivier Jacob said. "That will be the last report OPEC will be reading before they meet next week and will really be the key data of the week."

Producer group OPEC, faced with a loss of more than $100 a barrel in oil prices since July, has already agreed to cut about 2 million bpd to support prices, and members are leaning toward more cuts at their upcoming meeting in Algeria.

OPEC top producer Saudi Arabia, which has called $75 a barrel a "fair price," will make bigger supply cuts to some of its Asian and European customers next month, as it redoubles efforts to arrest slumping crude.

(Additional reporting by Jennifer Tan in Singapore; editing by James Jukwey)

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