By Matthew Bigg
VENICE, Louisiana (Reuters) - Winds pushed a huge oil slick towards the U.S. Gulf shore on Sunday as President Barack Obama's administration cranked up pressure on BP <:BP.LO:>Plc to halt the uncontrolled, growing spill from its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well.
Obama, seeking to deflect criticism that his government may have been slow in responding to what looks like a major environmental catastrophe, was due to travel this morning to Louisiana, to check on efforts to contain the slick.
In comments highlighting what could be the worst oil spill in U.S. history, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said on Sunday that in a worst case scenario the blown-out well could gush 100,000 barrels (4.2 million gallons or 15.9 million litres) or more of oil per day -- a huge increase over existing official estimates of only 5,000 barrels per day.
"Our job basically is to keep the boot on the neck of British Petroleum to carry out the responsibilities they have both under the law and contractually to move forward and stop this spill," Salazar told CNN's "State of the Union" program.
He said there was "no doubt" a mechanism that should have prevented oil from blowing out of the BP well was defective.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts showed the spreading spill, gushing unchecked from a blown-out undersea oil well, moving inexorably towards the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama coasts, driven by winds from the south,
The projection indicated the possibility of some oil beaching on part of the Chandeleur Islands on the fringe of the Mississippi Delta. The outlying islands are the site of the Breton National Wildlife refuge, home to major bird colonies.
Although the Coast Guard has laid hundreds of thousands of feet (meters) of protective booms to try to halt the encroaching oil, high winds and rough seas were badly hampering the deployment of the plastic barriers and efforts by boats and planes to spray chemical dispersant on the oil.
"On top of that, we're going to have some pretty strong storms. These are just the worst conditions. When you have seas like that, you can hardly get the boats out, and the winds affect the aircraft," Ken Graham, head of the National Weather Service office in New Orleans, said.
Obama is expected in Louisiana this morning. He is concerned to show his government is adequately responding to what threatens to be an economic and ecological catastrophe, one that could ultimately rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska, which was the worst U.S. oil spill ever.
Obama's administration has demanded that London-based BP Plc, the owner of the blown-out well, do more to plug the flow of oil and contain the spreading slick.
British newspaper the Mail on Sunday said the spill could cost BP over 3 billion pounds ($4.6 billion) in containment and clean-up expenses. It said BP's insurance company Jupiter had laid off some catastrophe risk to larger reinsurers such as Lloyd's of London, Swiss Re or Munich Re.
The president has ordered senior administration officials to use all possible resources to fight the spreading slick.
(Additional reporting by Anna Driver in Houston, Paul Simao in Washington; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Paul Simao)
