Gulf tropical storm puts BP spill work on hold

HOUSTON/LONDON (Reuters) - The approach of Tropical Storm Bonnie on Friday forced BP Plc to halt efforts to permanently plug a gushing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, sending ships and workers scrambling for safety.

Two rigs stopped drilling relief wells intended to halt the leak for good and prepared to move out of the path of the storm, which was projected to hit the spill area on Saturday with winds of 39 to 73 miles per hour (62-117 kph).

Many non-essential workers already have abandoned the spill site, and officials said the key drilling ships were expected to pull out later on Friday and be gone about two days.

"If we have to evacuate the scene we're probably looking at a very limited window -- probably 48 hours," retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top U.S. spill official, told reporters.

BP sealed the leak last week using a tight-fitting containment cap, choking off the flow of oil for the first time since an April 20 rig explosion killed 11 workers and sent crude spewing into the Gulf, soiling coastlines and devastating tourism and fishery industries.

The evacuation could push back BP's mid-August target date for a permanent solution to the leak to late August. But the blown-out well will remain capped during the halt to operations, easing fears the gushing leak would resume.

The evacuation also delayed another potential solution, the launch of a "static kill" operation to pump heavy drilling mud and possibly cement into the well.

BP's containment efforts have been watched closely by investors because BP's ultimate costs may hinge on how much oil is determined to have flowed into the Gulf.

Company shares were up about 1.7 percent in morning trading in New York. The company's second-quarter results are due on Tuesday.

Analysts at Barclays bank said BP could report a loss for the second quarter of $13 billion (8.4 billion pounds) as it makes provisions of up to $25 billion for the cost of the oil spill -- far outweighing an expected 77 percent jump in underlying profits.

U.S. INVESTIGATION

BP's response to the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history was marked by a series of public relations gaffes by top management and calls have grown for the ouster of Chief Executive Tony Hayward.

On Friday, BP said it had removed doctored photographs of its oil spill response effort from its website, blaming a "simple error" that analysts said would further damage its already battered credibility.

BP published a photograph of a helicopter near the spill site which had been altered to give the impression the aircraft was in flight and to give a clearer view of vessels working on the relief effort.

Two BP managers have been named as subjects of a U.S. federal investigation into the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, the Wall Street Journal said.

The U.S. National Hurricane Centre said Bonnie, the second named storm of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, was on a track that could take it over the BP spill site before it hits the Gulf coast. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a state of emergency.

U.S. President Barack Obama, under political pressure for his handling of the spill, will spend the August 14 weekend along the hard-hit Florida Gulf Coast, the White House announced.

(Additional reporting by Joel Dimmock; Writing by John Whitesides and Sitaraman Shankar; Editing by Jackie Frank)