WASHINGTON -- Oil prices are projected to remain well above $50 a barrel for years to come, this winter's sting of high natural gas prices won't stand and domestic nuclear power will make a comeback, a new Energy Department analysis says.

The report, released yesterday, reflects a sharp change from the department's projections a year ago when it predicted oil prices in constant dollars -- not counting normal inflation -- would decline to $31 a barrel by 2025.

The report, issued by the department's Energy Information Administration, now projects oil will cost an average $54 a barrel in 2025 and $57 a barrel in 2030 before inflation. Currently, crude oil prices have been hovering around $60 a barrel, briefly soaring as high as $70 earlier this year.

The EIA report, however, projected that natural gas prices, which have soared to more than $14 per thousand cubic feet in recent weeks, would retreat and return to below $5 a thousand cubic feet in the years ahead.

It projected a likely price of $4.46 per thousand cubic feet in 2016 as demand for the fuel eases and supplies increase.

But the agency said domestic gas production even as far out as 2025 is expected to be slightly less than projected a year ago, because of the long-term impact from hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The hurricanes shut down Gulf of Mexico gas production and full operation is not expected until next summer.

The impact of the hurricanes is "expected to delay offshore drilling projects because of a lack of rigs and ... have a long-term effect on production levels," said the report.

The agency said it added about $21 to the future price of a barrel of crude because it does not expect OPEC oil producers to pump as much as oil as previously projected. Consequently, world oil supplies are presumed to remain tight over the next several decades.

OPEC ministers, meeting yesterday in Kuwait, decided to maintain the organization's production levels but strongly hinted that they would consider reducing its output early next year in order to stave a possible drop in demand next spring.

Even if the outcome had been widely anticipated, OPEC's signal was all the encouragement oil markets needed to push up oil prices again.

Crude oil for January delivery rose $1.91, or 3.2 percent, to $61.30 a barrel yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest closing price since Nov. 3. Oil futures are down 13 percent from a record $70.85 a barrel on Aug. 30, the day after Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana and Mississippi, but prices still are 51 percent higher than a year ago.

OPEC decided to meet again in seven weeks, two months ahead of a previously scheduled meeting, in order to consider cuts in its output and anticipate slower demand in the spring, when demand typically falls following the winter surge and before a pickup with the summer driving season.

In its new analysis, the EIA projected global oil demand, currently about 82 million barrels a day, to grow to 111 million barrels by 2025.

With high oil prices a long-term fixture, there will be more domestic crude oil production, increased demand for unconventional transportation fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel and greater use of more fuel efficient hybrid gasoline-electric cars and trucks, the EIA said.