Oil prices flipped from losses to gains Wednesday as U.S. data showed that supplies of oil and gasoline fell and as investors tried to gauge the impact of a storm swirling in the Gulf of Mexico. U.S. crude futures settled up 58 cents, or 1.21%, to $48.41 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent, the global benchmark, rose 70 cents, or 1.35%, to $52.57 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that U.S. crude inventories fell 3.3 million barrels last week, roughly in line with the 3.1 million-barrel drop anticipated by analysts and traders surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Gasoline stockpiles fell by 1.2 million barrels, exceeding the 500,000-barrel drop expected by analysts. Diesel stocks were roughly flat. Those figures were bullish compared with projections Tuesday evening by the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, which said that gasoline and distillate […]