Daily News Reports

NEW ORLEANS - The final feet of well drilling relief intended to permanently plug busted BP wells petroleum deep below the Gulf of Mexico will have to wait two or three days as a tropical depression strengthening bears down on site.

BP officials and Coast Guard had already decided to stop drilling earlier Tuesday prior to the National Hurricane Center forecasters named storm depression. A tropical storm warning has been issued for a large part of the coast affected by spills of oil, Gulf of destiny, Florida, at the La Intracoastal, city.

The center of the storm was located off the coast of Florida, hundreds of kilometres southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. He was travelling at Northwestern and should strengthen slowly and become a storm tropical Wednesday.

Retired Coast Guard flagship Thad Allen, point the Government on the spill, man says the final steps will have to wait for any threat to the well who spewed over 200 million litres of oil over three months before a temporary cap it seals in mid-July.

Crews will appear in a temporary to protect Cap through them thus far, but they do return to shore workers.They left approximately 30 to 50 feet penetrated.

The franchise is well meant to BP PLC allow mud pump and cement in broken deep underground for a so-called kill the bottom, a permanent seal that would complement a plug injected into the upper part of the property last week.

Allen insisted on days that BP move forward with the kill low, although the upper plug seemed tenir.Mardi, however, he said test must still be done on the well before a final decision is rendered.

"I'm not sure that we know that... I do not want to prejudge whether it continues to do so or step go faire.Il will be based on conditions.

He later assigned "a very low probability" to kill the bottom does not do so, but then said: "We inform everyone" If that changes.

BP, Vice-President Kent Wells said really is 'a possibility' engineers cement pumped in through the top down into the reservoir, returned and plugged in the ring, which lies between the inner pipe and the outer envelope.

Allen also says officials have been delete some boom that had been submitted to trap oil in Florida, Alabama, and the Mississippi.Il says that the boom will be there in storage and available for use later, if necessary.

The delay of the storm came on the same day as fishermen and tourist operators received some good news: Federal authorities announced that approximately 5,000 square miles of Gulf on the Florida Panhandle has been reopened for commercial and recreational fisheries.

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, said the extent of the East of Pensacola in Cape San Blas and extension of the South in open Gulf is safe for the pêche.Aucune oil was observed in these waters since July 3, however testing continues.

The spill began with an explosion of 20 April who sank the BP-leased rig horizon killed and deep water drilling 11 workers.

More than 300 lawsuits filed in response against BP and other companies will be treated by a federal judge in New Orleans, a judicial panel said Tuesday.

An order made Tuesday by u.s. Judicial Committee on multidistrict litigation says 77 cases as well as over 200 potential "tag along" shares will be transferred to US District Judge Carl Barbier.

Order of the judicial panel said New Orleans-based Federal Court is the best place for disputes because southeast Louisiana is the "geographical and psychological ' centre of gravity" ' for cases.