By Alex Lawler LONDON (Reuters) - Oil rose more than 5 percent on Monday, fueled by hopes that plans around the world to lift growth could avert recession and by Saudi Arabia's intention to cut crude supplies to Asia in December. China launched a huge stimulus plan on Sunday worth nearly $600 billion. Saudi Arabia told refiners in Asia it would cut December supplies by 5 percent, a sign that it is adhering to an OPEC plan to cut output. "The surprise was the Chinese announcement," said Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix. "The Saudi cut was fully expected." U.S. crude rose $3.22, or 5.3 percent, to $64.26 a barrel by 7:07 a.m. EST, having earlier risen as high as $64.74. London Brent crude gained $3.22 to $60.57. Oil lost nearly 10 percent last week and dipped below $60 the previous week, its lowest since March 2007, after a string of dismal economic data from the United States sharpened fears of a protracted recession. Some traders expect oil's rally to be short-lived as the bigger picture remains bearish. "I don't think there's anything very bullish," said Christopher Bellew, a broker at Bache Commodities. "All the technicians and fundamentalists think we haven't seen the bottom yet." The drop in prices from July's record high of $147.27 has already spurred OPEC to rein in supply from November 1, and some members of the group are talking of reducing production further. OPEC will cut oil output again if the trend toward lower prices and slowing demand growth are unchanged when the group meets on December 17, Iran's OPEC Governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters on Sunday. The country's oil minister said on Monday that the producer group could decide to meet before December. (Additional reporting by Fayen Wong in Perth and Barbara Lewis in London, editing by Anthony Barker)

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