Signs of a strong rally in global economic growth and oil demand this year are fading but there could be a dramatic turnaround next year, the IEA said on Friday.

Recent data is showing that American motorists might again hold back on their so-called driving season this year, and emerging economies would be the main force behind renewed strong oil demand when it came, the IEA said.

In the last two months many economists had announced that the global recession was bottoming out and were forecasting a strong recovery in the second half of this year, the International Energy Agency commented.

But "over the past two weeks the mood has suddenly changed, as many leading economic and energy indicators continue to show very weak readings, suggesting that the 'green shoots' have been largely driven by a rebuild of inventories rather than by strong end-user demand," the IEA said.

"We thus remain sceptical regarding the much-trumpeted, strong second half 2009 demand rebound, even if China exceeds expectations," it said in its monthly oil report.

But "in 2010, by contrast, the picture could be dramatically different," the agency said while stressing that forecasts were "perilous" given "the great uncertainty regarding the pace and strength of the global economic recovery."

The agency based its headline outlook in part on the latest forecast from the International Monetary Fund, published too recently to be fully reflected in the IEA's figures.

The IMF was now expecting global growth of 1.8 percent next year after shrinkage of 1.4 percent this year, "a swing of over three percentage points."

Noting that in July, a four-month rally in oil prices had run out of steam, the IEA held steady its forecast of a 2.9-percent fall in global oil demand this year, but saw a jump of 1.7 percent next year.

These figures suggested that global demand this year would fall by 2.5 million barrels per day from the 2008 figure on unexpectedly weak data from the 30 advanced economies in the area of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Next year demand would rise by 1.4 million barrels per day from this year's level to 85.2 million barrels per day, "largely led by non-OECD countries."

Production by members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries rose by 75,000 barrels per day in June to 28.7 million barrels per day.

This was despite a wave of disruptions to supplies in Nigeria, and was the second monthly increase running by OPEC.

Output by the so-called OPEC-11 countries averaged 26.2 million barrels per day "suggesting compliance of about 68 percent with announced cuts."

The IEA revised up it forecast of oil supplies from non-OPEC producers this year, owing mainly to unexpectedly strong output by Russia.

And next year, output would be boosted by extra production from Azerbaijan, Brazil, the global biofuel industry, the US Gulf of Mexico and Canadian oil sands.