1st LD Writethru: Oil prices rebound after sharp decline

Oil prices rebounded strongly Friday as the International Energy Agency (IEA) expected oil producers to boost output at a slower rate this year.

The IEA said in its oil market report that the oil selloff has cut expectations of 2015 non-OPEC supply growth by 350,000 barrels per day (350 kb/d) since last month, to 950 kb/d.

Despite lower prices, demand growth is forecast to accelerate only 0.9 mb/d in 2015, unchanged from the outlook in IEA's December report.

Low crude prices also slowed drilling activities for U.S. oil companies. The average U.S. rig count for December 2014 was 1,882, down 43 from the 1,925 counted in November 2014, service company Baker Hughes said on its website.

Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Energy Department' s statistical arm, forecast that Brent crude oil prices will average 58 dollars in 2015 and 75 dollars in 2016, with annual average U.S. crude prices expected to be 3 to 4 dollars below Brent.

Forecast total crude oil production averages 9.3 million barrels per day in 2015, according to EIA's energy outlook report published Tuesday. Total U.S. crude oil production averaged an estimated 9.2 million barrels per day in last December.

Light, sweet crude for February delivery surged 2.44 U.S. dollars to settle at 48.69 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange,while Brent crude for March delivery jumped 1. 9 dollars to close at 50.17 dollars a barrel. Endite