oil futures gained ground early thursday with support tied to signs of improving demand in the us and improving economic data out of china upside may remain limited however as hot inflation readings stoke expectations global central banks will continue to tighten monetary policy aggressively possibly setting the stage for a later downturn   west texas intermediate crude for april delivery cl1 cl00 clj23 rose 33 cents or 04 to 7802 a barrel on the new york mercantile exchange   may brent crude brn00 brnk23 the global benchmark was up 33 cets or 04 at 8464 a barrel on ice futures europe   april gasoline rbj23 rose 03 to 2684 a gallon while april heating oil hoj23 gained 06 to 2892 a gallon crude was following through on gains seen the previous session after upbeat readings on purchasing managers indexes for the manufacturing and services sector from china crude was also lifted after government data on wednesday showed a 12 million barrel rise in us crude inventories that was above analyst estimates but the smallest increase since the week ended jan 20 it was also well below the 62 million barrel increase reportedly seen by the american petroleum institute in its weekly report “there was a sense of relief for the bulls when comparing the oil headline to the api’s corresponding figure” wrote analysts at sevens report research in a note “the details were net bullish as there was only an incremental 01 dip to 858 in the refinery utilization rate less than the still admittedly modest 03 decline expected while gasoline supplied an implied measure of consumer demand topped 9 million barrels a day mbd at 91 mbd for just the third time since early november” they wrote meanwhile inflation across the countries that share the euro moderated by less than expected in february despite rapidly easing energy prices adding to signs that price pressures are more persistent than previously thought eurozone consumer prices rose 85 in february compared with the same month a year earlier easing slightly from a 86 annual increase in january preliminary data from the european union’s statistics agency eurostat showed thursday the reading topped the 82 consensus forecast from economists polled by the wall street journal