Oil prices have rallied to an 11-month high this month, helped by a Jan. 5 decision by most members of OPEC+ to hold production steady in February and a pledge by Saudi Arabia to voluntarily cut output.
The emergence of new strains of the virus, renewed lockdowns in China and logistical hurdles facing vaccine roll-outs contributed to the gloomier oil demand outlook by the IEA.
Both crude oil benchmarks are trading at the highest since February 2020, before the coronavirus outbreak in China began spreading across the world and billions of people went into lockdown.
Long-term exporters will not be required to seek separate authorizations.
The U.S. has become a major LNG exporter, mostly due to the ramp up of Cheniere's Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana.
Tough restrictions on socializing and businesses continued in California, the most populous U.S. state with about 40 million, and one of the largest driving markets in the world.
FERC alleged BP violated the Natural Gas Act by manipulating the next-day gas market at Houston Ship Channel from mid-September through Nov. 30, 2008.
Crude oil inventories in the U.S. fell by 8 million barrels in the week to Jan. 1 to 485.5 million barrels, their biggest decline since August, exceeding analysts' expectations.
The 13-member OPEC group pumped 25.59 million bbl/d of oil in December, the survey found, up 280,000 bbl/d from November and a further increase from a three-decade low reached in June.
WTI futures in the U.S. climbed as much as 0.6% to $50.24/bbl, also the highest since Feb. 26, before slipping to $49.96. The contract on Jan. 5 closed up 4.6%.