American Petroleum Institute will report supply data at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time By Polya Lesova, MarketWatch FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) -- Oil futures rose above $71 a barrel on Tuesday, rebounding after five straight sessions of losses, as traders bet that crude's recent decline may have been overdone. Crude oil for June delivery gained $1.71, or 2.5%, to $71.79 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. The front-month contract hit an intraday high of $71.91 a barrel. Oil futures dropped 2.1% on Monday to end at a five-month low, as worries escalated that Europe's sovereign debt problems will slow down the global economic recovery and lead to a decline in energy demand. "The markets continue to underestimate the strength of the macroeconomic data and overestimate the transmission from the European sovereign crisis into growth, but buying this dip carries more risk than in February as we have already seen the policy response," wrote analysts at Goldman Sachs in a note to clients. Oil futures have also been under pressure because of rising inventories at Cushing, Okla., the delivery point for futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. "As we expect refinery runs to continue to increase, we remain confident that the situation in Cushing should reverse over the coming weeks," the Goldman analysts said. The American Petroleum Institute will report supply data at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Analysts polled by Platts expect a rise of 950,000 barrels in crude supplies and a build-up of 940,000 barrels in distillate stocks. Gasoline stocks are projected to have declined by 450,000 barrels. Refinery operations likely edged down by 0.11 percentage point to 88.29%. The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its more closely watched inventory data on Wednesday morning. Stock futures pointed to a higher opening on Wall Street ahead of data on producer prices and housing starts for April. The euro (CUR_EURUSD 1.2406, +0.0014, +0.1130%) was steady at $1.2397.

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