LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) - World oil demand will contract sharply in 2009 as the global economic slowdown further erodes consumption, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Friday.
The Paris-based agency joined the ranks of forecasters predicting a fall in global oil demand this year, revising its previous 2009 estimate by 940,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 85.3 million bpd -- a 500,000 bpd year-on-year fall.
"Forecast global oil demand has been sharply revised down for 2009, following a reassessment of global economic prospects," the adviser to industrialised nations said in its monthly report.
"Global GDP growth has been roughly halved to 1.2 percent, given the worsening outlook in OECD and non-OECD countries alike. The expected two-year contraction in oil demand will be the first since the early 1980s."
In its previous report, the IEA forecast global oil demand would fall in 2008, but recover in 2009, based on the resilience of emerging economies.
However, the agency now sees Chinese oil demand growth at just 90,000 bpd in 2009, as its GDP growth is seen slowing to 6.5 percent -- the slowest rate in eight years.
Reflecting the speed of the world slowdown, the IEA has taken the step of pre-empting further revisions to global economic growth projections from the International Monetary Fund and other agencies, on which it bases its assumptions.
As demand drops amid the current economic slowdown, oil inventories in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) have remained at high levels.
Stocks at the end of November equalled 56.4 days of cover, compared with 56.8 days at the end of October.
(Reporting by David Sheppard; Editing by William Hardy)