By Mark Shenk Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil was little changed amid speculation that OPEC ministers meeting in Cairo tomorrow may delay making an output cut until December as they assess the impact of their last supply reduction amid declining demand. The Iranian, Qatari and Kuwaiti oil ministers said the group would probably wait until its Dec. 17 conference in Oran, Algeria, before making a final decision on production. Reports today showed that the recession in Japan, the second-biggest oil importer, deepened in October as companies cut output, consumers spent less and fewer people looked for work. “The conventional wisdom at this point is OPEC will wait until December before making another cut,” said Michael Fitzpatrick, vice president for energy risk management at MF Global Ltd. in New York. Crude oil for January delivery declined 1 cent to settle at $54.43 a barrel at 1:47 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices rose 9 percent this week, the biggest weekly gain since March 2007. There was no floor trading on Nymex yesterday and today’s session ended 1 hour early because of the Thanksgiving holiday. Futures in after-hours electronic trading rose $1.08, or 2 percent, to $55.50 a barrel at 2:11 p.m. Electronic trading ceases at 5:15 p.m. Oil prices have tumbled 63 percent since reaching a record $147.27 on July 11 as the U.S., Europe and Japan face their first simultaneous recession since World War II. “My concern is that the recession is going to be worse than people are currently pricing, in which case oil prices could fall another 10 to 20 percent,” Nouriel Roubini, the New York University professor who predicted the current financial crisis in 2006, said in an interview today in Moscow. Japan’s Recession Deepens Japanese factory output fell 3.1 percent from September, when it rose 1.1 percent, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo. Companies plan to reduce production 6.4 percent this month, the most dismal outlook since the survey began in 1973, and a further 2.9 percent in December, the ministry said. Household spending slid 3.8 percent, the eighth consecutive drop. Ministers from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies 40 percent of the world’s oil, are meeting tomorrow for the third time in as many months to discuss production levels. The group agreed last month to reduce output quotas by 1.5 million barrels a day. “Now we are preparing the data and we will take the final decision in Algeria,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said at his hotel in Cairo. Qatar and Kuwait Qatar’s al-Attiyah and Kuwaiti Oil Minister Mohammed al- Olaim also said the group would probably wait until December. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi declined to speak as he arrived in Cairo today. “The Saudis and some of the other more-moderate Gulf countries will say the cuts only took effect on Nov. 1, let’s at least give ourselves a month to see how well we did,” Mike Wittner, head of oil market research at Societe Generale SA in London, said in a Bloomberg TV interview today. Brent crude oil for January settlement rose 36 cents, or 0.7 percent, to settle at $53.49 a barrel on London’s ICE Futures Europe exchange. To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net

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