Gulf of Mexico oil spill:

BP lawsuits take centre stage

US: More than 3,200 km from the Gulf of Mexico shoreline, a panel of US judges heard arguments from lawyers on Thursday on how piles of oil spill-related lawsuits against BP Plc should be merged.

The panel, meeting in Boise, Idaho, as part of its regularly scheduled rotation among federal courts, did not immediately rule on how it would handle the mounting civil litigation brought against BP and other defendants involved in the worst offshore oil disaster in US history.

A decision is expected within several weeks.

At stake is whether civil lawsuits from injured rig workers, fishermen, property owners, investors and others will be combined in Houston, where BP has its U.S. headquarters and wants the cases heard, or New Orleans, the preferred venue for many plaintiffs - or elsewhere. Some lawyers argue the litigation is too massive for any one court to handle.

The environmental havoc wreaked by the oil rig explosion that killed 11 workers could take years to reverse.

A temporary cap has halted the gusher a mile below the sea's surface while crews try to plug the well for good next week, but the massive spill has wrecked the Gulf's fishing and tourism industries.

BP could start its "static kill" plan to pump mud into the Macondo well - the first in a two-step process to choke it off with mud and cement - by this weekend, ahead of the scheduled start time on Monday, the top US official dealing with the spill said on Thursday. "There's a chance that that schedule can be accelerated," retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen told reporters in New Orleans.

He also said the US government is laying the groundwork to shift its massive oil spill clean-up operation from acute disaster management to long-term recovery, and that the clean-up could take years.

Millions of gallons of oil leaked into the ocean over nearly three months - until the well was capped two weeks ago. BOISE, Friday, Reuters