In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in April added 19 cents to $46.01 a barrel.

Oil prices rose Friday after falling overnight in New York but remained below 48 dollars a barrel as the market belatedly cheered strong US gasoline inventory levels.

“Any bearish news, like the large builds in US stocks on Wednesday, isn’t affecting the market majorly whereas any bullish news, about OPEC or demand, is used to keep the prices up,” said Veronica Smart, analyst at the Energy Information Centre.

“The market is incredibly reluctant to fall away from 45 dollars a barrel,” she added. Traders continued to digest an OPEC report in which the group raised its forecast for 2005 global oil demand growth to 2.11 percent from the previous estimate of 2.0 percent.