Oil Settles With a Modest Gain Ahead Of Supply Data

Oil futures finished with a slight gain on Tuesday as traders awaited weekly reports on U.S. crude supplies. May crude settled at $47.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 6 cents, or 0.1%. The American Petroleum Institute will release its petroleum-supply report late Tuesday, while the Energy Information Administration's data will be out Wednesday morning. Analysts polled by Platts expect the reports to show an increase of 4.6 million barrels in crude inventories for the week ended March 20.