The oil giant said it was now working to control the leak, which seen 93 barrels of oil released into GoM waters since a platform collapsed during Hurricane Katrina.

Reuters quoted a BP spokesperson as saying the well made its largest single release of 25 barrels two weeks ago, on August 15.

Further north, a technical fault at its troubled Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska has forced the company to slash output by a further 90,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) for several days.

Production at the field has already been halved to 200,000bopd for the past several weeks, after severe pipeline corrosion caused BP to shut down the eastern half of the development.

A spokesperson told Reuters that the United States’ largest oil field had been reduced to 110,000bpd following the failure of a natural gas compressor.

BP is currently trying to find alternative routes for the oil that would normally have been produced by the eastern half of Prudhoe Bay, where severe pipeline corrosion has forced it to replace all major transit lines. But officials have warned that full output would not be restored in the short term.