The Helix Producer processing vessel would more than double the amount of oil that can be siphoned up from a "top hat" funnel a mile down on the sea floor to 53,000 barrels a day, officials say.

The latest estimate for the amount of oil leaking from the wreck of the sunken Deepwater Horizon rig is between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels a day. The system currently hoovers up roughly 25,000 barrels of oil and water mix a day.

"We hope over the next 48 hours the sea state will die down and allow that hook up to take place," said Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the top government disaster official.

Allen said it would take at least another three days for the big sea swells to subside and allow crews to rig up the Helix Producer.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs concurred, saying no hook-up until Friday was likely, "given the weather and the size of the seas, the waves."

The stormy weather also delayed plans to deploy a Taiwanese mega-skimmer, A Whale, which could dramatically increase the amount of spilled crude that clean-up crews can scoop from the ocean surface.

The skimmer, a re-fitted supertanker, must undergo "proof of concept" testing before it can be deployed and the high waves have so far prevented crews from completing the tests.

The ship is believed to be able to suck up to 500,000 barrels (21 million gallons) of oily water a day.

By comparison, more than 500 smaller vessels in 10 weeks only managed to collect some 680,950 barrels, or 28.6 million gallons, of oil-water mix between them.

A final solution to the oil spill, arguably the biggest ever and certainly America's worst environmental disaster, is not expected until mid-August at the earliest when engineers hope to have completed the drilling of relief well.

The US government launched Wednesday its new face to the spill, moving away from the website it had jointly run with BP.

The site, wwww.RestoreTheGulf.gov, was intended to serve "as a one-stop repository for news, data and operational updates" related to the response effort, Allen said in announcing the move.

Leaking crude has now washed up on the shores of all five US states in the Gulf of Mexico, and tar balls from the spill have even entered the vast Lake Pontchartrain, bordering New Orleans.

Some 779 kilometers (484 miles) of shoreline has been oiled and closed fishing grounds and tourist cancellations threaten financial ruin for residents furious over BP's failure to cap the spill.

The energy giant had forked out 3.12 billion dollars in spill-related costs by last weekend and has promised to pay another 20 billion into an escrow fund to compensate Americans affected by the spill.

Fears that BP will buckle under the weight of compensation, penalty and clean-up costs have sparked rumors that the firm might issue new stock or seek new shareholders.

The company denied the claims Tuesday, but The Times newspaper in London reported that officials at Britain's Department of Business and the Treasury were still considering contingencies in case BP collapsed.

BP chief executive Tony Hayward was in oil-rich Abu Dhabi on Wednesday amid reports the British giant was seeking sovereign wealth fund support.

BP officials declined to give details of Hayward's visit to the United Arab Emirates capital but said he had been engaged in a series of meetings.

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