oil futures were on track for a third straight gain wednesday finding support as worries about rising interest rates appeared to fade and industry data showed a decline in us crude inventories   west texas intermediate crude for march delivery cl1 cl00 clh23 rose 89 cents or 12 to 7803 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange   april brent crude brn00 brnj23 was up 80 cents or 1 at 8449 a barrel on ice futures europe   march gasoline rbh23 rose 07 to 2473 a gallon while march heating oil hoh23 gained 19 to 2959 a gallon   march natural gas ngh23 was flat at 2585 per million british thermal units oil extended gains on tuesday after federal reserve chairman jerome powell didn’t push back as forcefully as feared on market expectations the central bank will slow its interest rate increases powell said he expected to see a significant fall in inflation this year but also warned that a surprisingly strong labor market means bringing down inflation will take longer and require rates to move higher than investors had previously anticipated macro investors “have pivoted from selling oil contracts as an expression of the deflationary theme to pricing in a reflationary impulse as the us economy is shedding recessionary concerns after chair powell did not signal a higher terminal rate was on the cards at this time” said stephen innes managing partner at spi asset management in a note oil supply data will also be in focus wednesday the american petroleum institute an industry trade group late tuesday reported a 22 million barrel fall in us crude inventories last week dow jones newswires reported gasoline stocks were up 53 million barrels while distillate inventories rose 11 million barrels the energy information administration’s more closely followed inventories data is due wednesday morning analysts surveyed by sp global commodity insights on average look for crude inventories to rise 21 million barrels while gasoline stocks are seen up 16 million barrels and distillates up 100000 barrels