BP’s stricken well in the Gulf of Mexico spilled an estimated 4.4 million barrels of oil into the ocean before it was capped, the first objective study of the disaster has concluded.

BP will begin tests today on the new containment cap which it hopes will stop the flood of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Tar balls found on a Texas beach were confirmed as the first evidence that gushing crude oil from the Deepwater Horizon well had reached all the Gulf states.

I’VE just read that in the US, Hurricane Alex has pushed a huge oil slick towards Grand Isle on the Louisiana coast, already in imminent danger of inundation from BP’s Deepwater Horizon which is pumping between 50,000 and 100,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea.

UNDERSEA robots tried to thread a small tube into the jagged pipe that is pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico yesterday in BP’s latest attempt to cut down on the spill from a blown-out well that has pumped out more than four million gallons of crude.