"I am stateside, and have a good friend that worked for BP for 30 years. He thinks that the Gulf spill is going to be much worse than we are being led to believe, and he notes that this oil field is actually the largest in the world (I would have thought that was in the mid-east.) Thus, we have potentially very significant economic ramifications. (I did read where shipping is not allowed into the Mississippi River if the boats have oil on their hulls, that in itself could be huge.) Your thoughts?"

Eoin Treacy's view This oil spill is already a major ecological event. The extent to which it will escalate is probably dependent on how fast BP get it under control, how much the slick is dispersed by the Gulf's currents and where it makes landfall. The cost of the clean up is likely to continue to increase and sentiment towards offshore drilling is deteriorating. This article by Joe Carroll for Bloomberg may be of additional interest.

However, the facts remain that regardless of the dangers involved, a large proportion of new global oil supply is expected to come from offshore resources. Therefore, we simply cannot afford to stop drilling deep offshore wells. The companies directly involved in this disaster are likely to take the greatest hit to their balance sheets but others involved in the sector will not have to bear the clean up costs and will probably recover from this recent pullback faster than BP.

BP encountered resistance near 650p in April and pulled back sharply as a result of this oil spill. The pace of the decline has eased but an upward dynamic is needed to indicate demand is regaining the upper hand and to offset scope for continued lower to lateral ranging.
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Apache Corp has been ranging around the $100 level since October in a relatively gradual mean reversion. It pulled back sharply last week but appears to be finding support in the region of the 200-day moving average and a sustained move below last week's low near $90 would be required to question scope for further higher to lateral ranging.

Noble Corp has a similar pattern to Apache and broke back below the psychological $40 last week. It also appears to be finding support and a sustained move below $35 would be required to question scope for some further higher to lateral ranging.

The outlook for these shares remains contingent on a relatively sanguine oil price which needs to hold its progression of rising reaction lows, currently near $70 to sustain the medium-term bullish outlook.