The US government’s incident commander for the Gulf of Mexico oil spill said today that BP’s blown-out well is expected to be permanently sealed and declared dead by Sunday, nearly five months after a rig explosion set off the disaster.

The US is reopening more federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico for commercial and recreational fishing that had been closed because of the massive oil spill, a government official said today.

Crews hurried to get back to work on plugging BP's leaky oil well after Tropical Storm Bonnie fizzled out and engineers hoped for a window of clear weather long enough to stop the gush for good.

BP reported further progress yesterday in stemming the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but new evidence showed part of the slick could be swept to Florida’s beaches and sensitive coral reefs.