Oil rises on short-covering; down 20 pct in November

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil rose in late Friday trade on short-covering ahead of OPEC's meeting this weekend after slowing demand sent prices down nearly 20 percent in November.

U.S. crude traded up CLc1> 76 cents to $55.20 a barrel at 2:32 p.m. EST in late post-settlement trade. Earlier, U.S. crude settled at $54.43 a barrel, down 1 cent from Wednesday's close, in a shortened NYMEX trading session.

U.S. markets, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, were shut on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, though U.S. crude did trade on the Globex electronic platform.

London Brent crude LCOc1> settled at $53.49, up 36 cents from Thursday.

"It looked like there was some short-covering ahead of the OPEC meeting," said Jim Ritterbusch, president, Ritterbusch & Associates, in Galena, Illinois. "There was some support from the recovery in the stock market."

U.S. stocks rebounded from early losses as financials gained on signs that liquidity measures were beginning to work.

Oil prices have tumbled from record highs over $147 a barrel struck in July as demand in the United States and other large consumer nations slumped amid an economic crisis.

Global oil demand is expected to decline slightly this year and next, the first fall in a generation because of the world economic downturn, according to a Reuters poll.

Crude's steep November drop followed a 32 percent fall in October, the biggest monthly drop ever. The losses came despite agreements by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries since September to cut output by a total of 2 million barrels per day (bpd).

OPEC MEETING

OPEC ministers gathering in Cairo for an informal meeting this weekend said they were likely to defer a decision on more output cuts until the December 17 meeting in Algeria.

Still, two delegates said there was a chance the producer group could cut output on Saturday.

Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said he may propose a one million bpd cut.

A Reuters poll this week of 15 analysts forecast by a narrow margin that OPEC would make no announcement of a further reduction in oil output this weekend but would probably do so at its meeting in Algeria.

(Reporting by Matthew Robinson and Gene Ramos in New York; Jane Merriman and Christopher Johnson in London and Maryelle Demongeot in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy)