London (Platts)--14Sep2009/649 am EDT/1049 GMT

The US Energy Administration has raised its forecasts of OPEC's oil export earnings by $4 billion to $559 billion this year and by $8 billion to $675 billion in 2010.

"Based on projections from the EIA September 2009 Short-Term Energy Outlook (STEO), members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could earn $559 billion of net oil export revenues in 2009 and $675 billion in 2010," the agency, statistics arm of the Department of Energy, said in a report last week.

The agency, statistics arm of the Department of Energy, estimates OPEC's 2008 net export revenues at $971 billion, $43 billion below the $1.01 trillion OPEC itself said it earned last year.

In July last year, the EIA forecast that OPEC could earn $1.25 trillion in 2008 and as much as $1.322 trillion in 2009. At that time, the EIA was expecting the price of US West Texas Intermediate crude to average $127/barrel in 2008 and $133/b in 2009.

After hitting records of more than $147/b in July 2008, however, prices cascaded downward over the subsequent months as the global economic downturn deepened and forecasters slashed their expectations of world oil demand.

Prices have been on a broadly upward trend since mid-February this year.

WTI crude futures traded at $39.44/b on February 18, their lowest level this year, but have since strengthened. WTI futures traded at $68.40/b at 09:48 GMT Monday.

The EIA uses the projections in its monthly Short Term Energy Outlook to forecast OPEC revenues. Last week, the EIA projected an average price of $60.12/barrel for West Texas Intermediate this this, an upward revision of 18 cents/b from its July forecast. For 2010, the EIA projected an average WTI price of $72.42/b, largely unchanged from the July forecast.

OPEC's own figures, published in July in its Annual Statistical Bulletin for 2008, showed that the group's top producer, Saudi Arabia, earned $283.2 billion last year, up from $206.5 billion in 2007. The EIA estimates Saudi Arabia's 2008 earnings at $288 billion.

For the first eight months of 2009, the EIA estimates OPEC's earnings at $340 billion, with Saudi Arabia's revenues at $92 billion. --Margaret McQuaile, margaret_mcquaile@platts.com