TheSpillSite.com

Mud that was forced down a blown-out well was holding down the flow of oil at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, BP said Wednesday.

The oil company said the overall cost includes nearly $165 million paid to settle individual claims. BP said that by Saturday, it had received 105,000 claims and made more than 52,000 payments.

BP's massive oil spill will become the largest ever in the Gulf of Mexico by Thursday based on the highest of the federal government's estimates, an ominous record that underscores the oil giant's dire need to halt the gusher.

As a federal judge mulls whether to lift a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the administrator of a $20 billion fund to compensate oil spill victims pledged Monday to speed payment of claims.

It is an overlooked danger in oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico's fragile ecosystem.

The financial toll of the oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico escalated Wednesday as BP's stock plummeted to a 14-year low and fishermen, businesses and property owners who have filed damage claims with the company angrily complained of delays, excessive paperwork and skimpy payments that have put them on the verge of going under.

A containment cap was capturing more and more of the crude pouring from a damaged oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, but that bit of hope was tempered Sunday by a sharp dose of pragmatism as the federal government's point man warned the crisis could stretch into the fall.