Cleanup crews waiting on shore along the US Gulf have had a few days reprieve as the slow-moving slick, from oil spewing from a damaged deep-water well, remained parked in waters that are placid, for now.
Teams of oil spill workers were set to take advantage of at least one more day of calm in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday to keep fighting to contain a huge and growing slick before winds turn against them.
Cleanup crews waiting on shore along the US Gulf have had a few days reprieve as the slow-moving slick, from oil spewing from a damaged deep-water well, remained parked in waters that are placid, for now.
"Right now, we're not showing shoreline impact for three days," BP Plc chief operating officer Doug Suttles said Tuesday.
BP, under heavy pressure in Washington since a deadly April 20 rig explosion triggered the breach in its well, hurried efforts toward plugging the gushing undersea leak that threatens coastal fishing and tourism and is reshaping the US political debate on offshore drilling.
It expects a giant steel containment device, fabricated in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, and designed to be placed over the biggest of three leaks on the seabed, to be shipped out toward the site on Wednesday and be operating in the next six days.
BP has also started drilling a relief well, but that could take two or three months to complete.
On Tuesday, as part of the of the biggest oil-containment operations attempted, nearly 200 boats tackled the slick by laying down and repairing miles of boom lines along Gulf shores. The slick is estimated to be at least 130 miles (208km) by 70 miles (112km) in size.
The favorable conditions are not expected to last. "The winds are helpful to us, but on Thursday they begin to be less helpful," Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal said in New Orleans.
At the Joint Information Center in Roberts, Louisiana, Coast Guard Petty Officer Matthew Schofield said there had been no reports of thick oil on shore.
Still, environmental regulators reported a "first sighting" of slick near the Chandeleur Islands, three narrow islands off the southeast coast of Louisiana, on Tuesday.
Local officials worried that yet another potential swing in wind direction could threaten the Chandeleurs.
Mississippi, Alabama and Florida are also threatened by the leak that is discharging crude at a rate estimated at more than 5,000 barrels (2,10,000 gallons, 795,000 litres) a day.
It is a race against time. If the slick contacts the so-called Loop sea current, the oily sheen could eventually be carried to Miami in south Florida, or as far as North Carolina's barrier islands, Robert Weisberg, a physical oceanographer at the University of South Florida, warned.
"Exactly when the oil will enter the Loop Current at the surface is unknown, but it appears to be imminent," Weisberg said, referring to the prevailing current in the Gulf.
Asked about the possibility, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the agency had no forecast of this in its 72-hour projection forecast window.
US interior secretary Ken Salazar is scheduled to visit wildlife refuges in Alabama and Louisiana on Wednesday as part of an effort by the Obama administration to show it is focused on the disaster and keeping the pressure on BP following the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and started the flow of oil into the sea.
The leak, still weeks or months away from being stopped, threatens to eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez catastrophe in Alaska, the worst previous US oil spill to date.
The political debate over the environmental impact of offshore drilling was fueled by the spill. Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, shot back at critics calling for the shutdown of drilling.
"They are absolutely wrong," she told CNN. Ending drilling is "not going to do anything to clean our environment, it's not going to do anything to create jobs -- it will lose jobs -- and it is not going to do anything to make America safe and energy-independent, and those are the three things we need to do."
The spill forced president Barack Obama to suspend plans to expand offshore oil drilling, unveiled last month partly to woo Republican support for climate legislation.
On Tuesday, BP shares showed signs of stabilisation after skidding 17 percent in the two weeks since the spill began.
US oil prices tumbled 4% to $82.74 a barrel as traders downplayed the threat to production and shipping.
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