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By Ray Fleming

US authorities have this week declared BPs' blown-out Maconda well in the Gulf of Mexico to have been made “effectively dead”, 152 days after the explosion that led to the world's largest accidental oil-spill. BP has said it will not return to the well although it left open the possibility of resuming drilling in the rich reservoir at some future date. Meanwhile, those affected by the oil spill continue to count the cost.

Some 40'000 square miles of fishing is still inaccessible in the Gulf of Mexico (about half the area initially closed) and on the Louisiana coast and wetlands there is still heavy oiling.

However, such assessments are inevitably partial and cannot take into account longer-term effects of the oil-spill that have yet to show themselves.
For this reason the US administration has set up an inquiry by expert scientists to measure the amount of oil remaining and its potential impact on marine life. Seagoing research vessels and extensive tests in the water from surface to the sea floor will be involved; some of America's best authorities on the subject have been brought into the team led by the head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By all accounts it will be an expensive operation -- and BP will have to pay the bill, over and above the 500 million dollars it has agreed to set aside for studies in the Gulf over the next 10 years.