Violent hurricanes may threaten oil clean-up

Meteorologists in the United States are warning of an unusually active hurricane season this summer, stirring concerns that just one severe tempest at sea early on could cripple ongoing operations by BP and the United States Government to plug the crippled oil well in the Gulf of Mexico and contain the already giant spill.

"All efforts on the shoreline and at sea, the booms and structures and rigs involved in clean-up and containment could stop working," said Ian MacDonald, a professor of oceanography at Florida State University.

"If a storm comes into this situation it could vastly complicate everything."

Executives for BP say that a tube successfully inserted into the mouth of the well's riser pipe over the weekend is capturing roughly one-fifth of that leak and delivering the oil and the gas to a tanker above.

They hope that the quantity of oil entering the pipe will increase in the coming days. Washington, though, said the tube was "not a solution".

The pressure on BP from Washington to do more to end the leak and step up containment measures continued.

"We will not rest until BP permanently seals the wellhead, the spill is cleaned up, and the communities and natural resources of the Gulf Coast are restored and made whole," the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, and the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, said in a joint statement.

US officials said yesterday that US President Barack Obama was to set up a commission to investigate the oil spill.

The news came as a top coast guard official warned that the leaking oil may reach the southern Florida coastline.

BP has emphasised that the tube is a first step.

"This is just containing the flow; later this week, hopefully before the end of the week, we'll make our next attempt to actually fully stop the flow," the chief operating officer, Doug Suttles, told NBC News.

Deadlines were meanwhile being set by Mother Nature. The hurricane season, which most commonly sees storms entering the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic, begins on 1 June.

- INDEPENDENT