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Oil higher in choppy Asian trade

New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, gained 17 cents to 36.11 dollars a barrel.

The contract is nearing five-year lows of 32.20 dollars hit on December 18.

Brent North Sea crude for March climbed 37 cents to 44.65 dollars.

"Basically from a fundamental point of view, I cannot see a strong market... because demand is not strong," said Ken Hasegawa, manager of the energy desk at Newedge Japan brokerage.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) said in its weekly report Wednesday that American crude stockpiles soared by 4.7 million barrels in the week ending February 6. That was higher than market expectations of a 3.0-million-barrel gain.

The industrialised nations' energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency (IEA), on Wednesday again cut its forecast for global oil demand this year.

It predicted that demand would measure 84.7 million barrels per day (bpd) on average in 2009 -- 570,000 bpd less than its last forecast made in January.

At this level, demand would be 1.1 percent or 1.0 million bpd less than in 2008, when demand also fell compared with the year earlier.

"Not only will the two-year contraction in oil demand be the first since the early 1980s, but 2009's decline will also be the largest since 1982," the IEA said in its monthly report.

The IEA also warned about a future supply crunch because of current low investment levels.