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Oil held near a five-month high as Hurricane Laura bore down on key refining facilities on the US Gulf Coast, with forecasts saying it will strengthen rapidly into a “potentially catastrophic” Category 4 storm.

Futures in New York were steady after jumping 1,7 percent on Tuesday.

The storm was expected to make landfall late Wednesday or early yesterday along the Texas-Louisiana coast, according to the National Hurricane Centre.

More than 84 percent of oil output in the Gulf of Mexico has now shut, while almost 3 million barrels a day of refining capacity has been closed.

Prices also got a boost after the American Petroleum Institute reported US oil inventories fell by 4,52 million barrels last week and gasoline stockpiles shrunk by 6,39 million barrels, according to people familiar with the data. — Bloomberg.