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A ship billed as the world's largest skimming vessel will continue testing its abilities in the Gulf of Mexico Sunday.

If A Whale's tests in a 5-by-5-mile area north of the underwater gusher are successful, the massive ship could play a key role in oil cleanup efforts

The boat, which swallows water with oil then separates it, can skim about 21 million gallons of oil a day. That's at least 250 times the amount that modified fishing vessels currently conducting skimming operations have been able to contain, according to Taiwanese company TMT shipping, which owns the vessel.

Initial results from tests are expected Monday, TMT spokesman Bob Grantham said.

A total of about 550 skimming vessels were out in the Gulf on Sunday, according to a spokeswoman for the Unified Command Joint Information Center in Houma, Louisiana.

Coast Guard Adm. Paul Zunkunft said he is also calling in reinforcements, including 300 new skimmers in the next two weeks.

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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off

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Tests of the effectiveness of the A Whale oil skimmer in the Gulf of Mexico are inconclusive, a spokesman for the company that owns the huge converted cargo ship said Monday.

Bob Grantham of TMT Shipping Offshore said rough seas over the initial 48-hour testing period made it difficult to determine the skimming results, but he expects more typical sea conditions over coming days will allow more testing.

TMT will work with the U.S. Coast Guard during the extended testing period "to make operational and technological adjustments aimed at improving skimming effectiveness given the actual conditions we are encountering in the Gulf." Grantham said.

The A Whale spent the weekend attempting to separate crude oil from seawater in a 25-square-mile area north of the ruptured BP oil well that's caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

If the testing is successful, the massive vessel could play a key role in efforts to clean up the widespread oil.

"We will continue to work very hard to make this big solution fit to the task of the big environmental problems created by the Macondo incident," Grantham said, referring to the ruptured well. "The people of the Gulf deserve nothing less."

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More help is on the way in the form of heavy oil recovery devices, or HORDs. The Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center says just weeks after the first HORD was successfully tested in the Gulf off the Alabama coast, the devices are making the cleanup much more efficient and effective, especially in collecting the thick, heavy oil that hampers traditional skimming methods. They are also able to clean up the extremely light and difficult-to-remove sheen left on the water's surface after skimming.

Eight to 10 HORDs, originally dubbed tarball retrieval devices, are being manufactured each day in shipyards in Pensacola, Florida, and Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Up to 1,000 units are expected to be manufactured and put into service, according to the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center.

About 550 skimming vessels were in the Gulf on Sunday, according to a spokeswoman for the Unified Command Joint Information Center in Houma, Louisiana. But with oil still pouring into the sea at a rate of tens of thousands of barrels a day, federal authorities closed a new section of the Gulf off Louisiana to fishing Sunday.

The latest order from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration adds nearly 1,100 square miles of federal waters off Louisiana's Vermilion Bay to the off-limits zone. The new closure brings the portion of the Gulf closed to fishing because of the massive BP spill to 33.2 percent, NOAA reported.

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A tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico, about 60 miles southwest of Morgan City, Louisiana, looms as a potential threat. But the National Hurricane Center says that disorganized, low-pressure system has only a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical cyclone before moving inland Monday night or Tuesday.

BP said it got about 24,955 barrels of oil out of the water Sunday. The company collected about 16,920 barrels (710,640 gallons) and burned about 8,035 barrels (337,470 gallons) of oil. In addition, BP said it burned about 56.9 million cubic feet of natural gas.

Even with operations to skim oil from the surface of the water stalled approximately three days because of the effects of Hurricane Alex, to date, these operations have recovered 632,410 barrels (26,561,200 gallons), BP said.

BP said Monday it is making progress on the long-term solution to the leak -- two relief wells. BP said the first relief well has reached a depth of 17,725 feet and is on its sixth "ranging" run, using an electromagnetic field to best determine where to intersect with the main well for "kill" operations at a target depth of around 18,000 feet. The second relief well is now 13,871 feet deep, BP said.

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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off

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Bob Grantham, spokesman for TMT Offshore Group, said progress has been made in testing the company's A Whale oil skimmer.

The delay from high seas "has allowed us to make valuable observations and to develop some additional technological innovations designed to improve the channeling of oily water into the ship's large capacity tanks," Grantham said in a statement issued Tuesday. "Over the next few days, we will have our first real opportunity to test the new technology under conditions that we hope will maximize the effectiveness of collection and ultimately decanting."

The Coast Guard said the testing period for the A Whale has been extended through Thursday.

So far, crude oil floating in the sea has not been concentrated enough for A Whale to skim effectively, according to oil company BP, even though it appears the ship has been surrounded by pools of oil just a few miles from the gusher.

"We've got oil coming up from over a mile below the surface. And it doesn't always come up in one spot. It's not always predictable. So, in fact, we need to locate the oil first, and then assign the ship to the areas of heaviest concentration," BP spokesman Hank Garcia said.

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Despite rough weather, the man leading the federal response to the oil disaster believes that the placement of a new containment cap and the deployment of key air and sea resources will eventually stop the massive amounts of oil now gushing from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Newly retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen told CNN on Tuesday that over the next seven to 10 days, officials will be monitoring weather patterns to determine if and when they would try to install the cap, a process that will involve unbolting the jagged edge that exists on the structure now. Once completed, the new containment cap, he said, will achieve a perfect seal and keep oil from escaping.

Allen said the new cap "would let us get to a capture rate of 80,000 barrels a day," and said he was planning a trip to Houston, Texas, to talk to BP officials about the plan.

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Hippie Operative Nikovich Nikita Nicovna Talibani,
signing off