LONDON, Feb 9 (AFP) - World oil prices rebounded strongly on Wednesday after US data showed heavy falls in crude and distillates stockpiles, and a smaller than expected rise in gasoline supplies, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, rose 55 cents to 45.95 dollars a barrel in electronic deals.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in March climbed 63 cents to 43.70 dollars a barrel.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) reported crude stockpiles had fallen 1.0 million barrels to 294.3 million during the week ending February 4.
Distillates, including heating fuel, fell by 3.0 million barrels to 115.6 million. Stockpiles of heating fuel fell 1.6 million barrels to 43.2 million.
Finally, gasoline, or petrol, inventories rose by 500,000 barrels to 216.8 million. Analysts had forecast stockpiles of US gasoline to have risen by one million barrels.
"These are generally a bullish set of figures, particularly for crude oil," Deutsche Bank analyst Adam Sieminski said.
He added that the falls justified a recent decision by oil kingpin Saudi Arabia to maintain output at 9.0 million barrels per day, rather than to cut production.
With the northern hemisphere winter nearly over, markets are switching their attention away from US stockpiles of heating fuel towards gasoline, or petrol, as Americans gear up for the so-called 'driving season' when motorists hit the roads for their vacations beginning in May.
Elsewhere, traders were keeping a watch over Iraq, where a North Oil Company source said a gas pipeline linking the country's northern oil hub of Kirkuk to the Baiji refinery was damaged by a rocket attack Wednesday.
"A rocket hit the gas pipeline near Al-Fatha, 90 kilometres (55 miles) southwest of Kirkuk," the official said on condition of anonymity.
Insurgents had launched a similar attack in the same area on Monday, blowing up a pipeline conveying crude from Kirkuk to Baiji refinery, which is key to much of Baghdad's power supply.
According to the Iraqi government, attacks on the country's oil infrastructure have cost Iraq seven to eight billion dollars in exports since the March 2003 US-led invasion.
In Norway, another major oil producer, oil group Statoil said production had almost returned to normal on its Snorre A platform in the North Sea, more than two months after it was shut down due to a gas leak.
Snorre A would for the time-being produce just under 100,000 barrels per day, compared to 130,000 bpd before the incident, it said.
Norway, which is the world's third-largest oil exporter after Saudi Arabia and Russia, normally has an average daily production of three million barrels.
02/09/2005 17:46 GMT - AFP