The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has raised its forecast for worldwide oil demand in 2011 to 87.9 million barrels per day from the previous month's forecast of 87.8 million bpd, OPEC said on Wednesday.

"The most important incident is the Japanese earthquake, which is expected to affect oil demand only marginally," OPEC said in its report.

Global oil demand is expected to grow by 1.4 million bpd in 2011 compared with 2010, the report said.

"Japan's disaster led to a sudden decline in the country's use of oil as areas of the economy halted and the transportation sector experienced a decline; however, this is likely to be offset later in the year as the country substitutes some of its shut-in nuclear power capacity with crude-burning power generation," the report said.

OPEC has cut its global GDP growth forecast for 2011 by 0.1% from its previous forecast to 3.9%, with the world economy's growth largely expected to be maintained by emerging countries, like China (9%) and India (8.1%), the report said.

Analysts say the situation on the global oil market is improving.

"The world's oil demand will grow as the world economy is recovering from the financial and economic meltdown," Anastasiya Sosnova, an oil analyst with Ivestcafe, told RIA Novosti.

"If global demand for oil grows, Russia's oil exports are also likely to expand as the situation in Libya and generally in the Middle East is unstable," Sosnova added.

OPEC includes Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Venezuela.

MOSCOW, April 13 (RIA Novosti)