Oil has been gushing out of the blown-out well for almost a month Oil has been gushing out of the blown-out well for almost a month 
 
 The first oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill has entered an ocean current that could take it to Florida and up the east coast of the US, scientists say. 
 
 A "small portion" of oil sheen is in the Loop Current, which circulates in the Gulf, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said. 
 
 Diluted oil could appear in isolated parts of Florida if persistent winds pushed the current that way, it added. 
 
 European scientists warn the spill could reach Florida within six days. 
 
 Oil has been spewing into the Gulf since the offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon, leased by oil giant BP, exploded off the coast of Louisiana on 20 April and sank two days later. 
 
 Powerful currents 
 
 Satellite images released by the European Space Agency (ESA) depict a streak of oil stretching south from the main slick into the Loop Current - a body of fast-flowing water coming from the Caribbean which the agency says is likely to propel oil towards Florida within six days. 
 
 Scientists at the NOAA, the US government's own climate body, broadly share that analysis, but say the oil is a "light sheen" representing just a small portion of the overall amount. 
 
 The oil would be "highly weathered" if it reached Florida, or could evaporate en route, it said. 
 
 The scientists warned that the turbulent Loop Current could mix the oil and water, making it difficult to track the oil's progress in the coming days. 
 
 Meanwhile, the US Coast Guard said tests showed that tar balls that washed up on Florida beaches in recent days had not originated from the oil spill off Louisiana. 
 
 It is unclear where the tar balls came from, Coast Guard officials said. 
 
 'Very scary' 
 
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 Also on Wednesday, the US said it was having talks with Cuba over the spill. 
 
 Observers say the rare talks demonstrate a concern that the oil may be carried by currents far from the site of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. 
 
 In Louisiana, a lawyer has asked a panel of federal judges to consolidate more than 100 cases related to the oil spill into a single action. 
 
 Daniel Becnel asked that the growing number of cases against oil companies BP, Transocean, Halliburton and Cameron be combined and heard in Louisiana, the Associated Press news agency reported. 
 
 The lawsuits have been filed by commercial fishermen, restaurants, hotels and property owners and others who say the oil spill has cost them income. 
 
 A BP executive said this week that the company had paid out $15m (£10.4m) in claims, much of it to shrimpers and commercial fishermen who have little or no income because of the spill. 
 
 Meanwhile, astronauts and cosmonauts aboard the International Space Station have said they could see the oil spill while passing over the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 "It looks very scary," Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov told reporters via a video link. ||||| Governor Charlie Crist said Wednesday May 19, 2010 that the tar balls found in the Florida Keys are not from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Crist spoke to the Miami Herald Editorial Board Wednesday and addressed the spill and drilling on the Florida coast. 
 
 News spread quickly Wednesday that tar balls found on beaches in the Lower Florida Keys were not from the Gulf of Mexico spill, a welcome reprieve for residents still fearful about the fate of their vacation mecca. 
 
 The development was tempered by a Coast Guard announcement that ``a small portion'' of Deepwater Horizon's oil slick had entered the Gulf's loop current and could reach the Florida Straits in seven or eight days. 
 
 Or, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association bulletin reported at day's end, ``the oil may get caught in a clockwise eddy in the middle of the gulf, and not be carried to the Florida Straits at all.'' 
 
 It all added to an air of uncertainty about how and when the Sunshine State would grapple with fallout from the gulf catastrophe that could threaten both the state's fragile ecosystem as well as its lifeblood industry: tourism. 
 
 ``That's a concern and we are monitoring it,'' Gov. Charlie Crist told The Miami Herald editorial board, adding that state officials still have no fixed date on when spill pollution might hit the Keys, or anywhere else. 
 
 The governor said he had been in touch with federal officials, among them White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett. 
 
 He said he could deploy up to 2,500 National Guard members, if need be, under a state of emergency he declared last month for the Florida Panhandle -- and was considering widening the emergency sector to include Monroe County and possibly Miami-Dade. 
 
 Wednesday's developments offered a mixed message -- relief on the one hand that the catastrophe had not yet come to Florida, but dread that it still might come. 
 
 The Coast Guard outpost in the Keys revealed that it had rushed samples to its lab in Groton, Conn., by Falcon jet from Miami and determined that 50 or so three- to eight-inch tar balls did not come from the Deepwater Horizon. 
 
 It said the findings were conclusive, even as the source of the spill that spawned the tar balls remained unknown. 
 
 Specially trained pollution-control experts scooped up the hazardous waste on Monday and Tuesday in four locations: Smathers Beach in Key West; Big Pine Key; Loggerhead Key in the Dry Tortugas National Park, and the Fort Zachary Taylor State Park. 
 
 On Wednesday, Jeff Bryant, 44, was among a knot of swimmers at a near-empty beach cleared by rain showers at Fort Zachary Taylor. 
 
 ``The tar balls aren't from the Gulf, but we still could see oil remnants here,'' said Bryant, a Key West resident who was gripping flippers and a heavy oxygen tank. ``I'm hoping for the best, but my mind keeps going to the worst-case scenario.'' 
 
 Monroe County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Becky Herrin, likewise, said she was relieved to learn that this week's oil contaminants hadn't come from the Deepwater Horizon. But, she said, ``You have to keep in mind we're still preparing for the possibility and keeping a close eye.'' 
 
 And so Keys environmentalists redoubled efforts to organize coastal cleanups to clear the shores of litter that, if mixed with contaminated oil, could become toxic along the 120-mile string of islands that stretch south of Miami, part of a fragile interdependent ecosystem of mangroves and seagrass. 
 
 ``Preemptively removing artificial debris from the shoreline of the preserve will reduce potential impacts from oil, and it is good for the environment in any event,'' a Nature Conservancy of Florida statement said, asking volunteers with kayaks and canoes to help clean up Little Torch Key on Saturday. 
 
 From Washington, Miami Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, whose district includes the Keys, lamented that the tar ball discovery had triggered ``premature panic'' and issued a stern warning: ``It is imperative that the Coast Guard and other national agencies work to ensure that information related to the path of the spill is delivered in a timely fashion.'' 
 
 Constituent Jodi Weinhofer, president of the Keys Lodging Association, reported that the anxious tourist industry was in ``wait-and-see mode'' with ``all the plans in place on how to manage this.'' 
 
 She added that she was assured that the Coast Guard lab finding reinforced earlier NOAA reports that the currents had not yet brought the slick from the oil spill to South Florida. 
 
 ``The good news is that the information that we've been getting is accurate,'' she said. ``And that's big. It's really encouraging.'' 
 
 Miami Herald staff writers Sergio Bustos, Jennifer Lebovich and Kenny Malone contributed to this report.
– Good news: The tar balls found on the beaches of Florida are not a result of the Gulf oil spill, authorities have proven. Bad news: It's only a matter of days before the oil hits for real. The spill has reached the Loop Current, the Miami Herald reports, which will send it shooting into the Straights of Florida within seven to 10 days. And when it does, it'll probably wash up as ... tar balls. From Florida, the oil could spread up the East Coast, according to the BBC, while the loop current ushers other oil to the pristine coral reefs of Cuba. Asked what could stop the oil's spread, a Coast Guard admiral replied, “It would take an act of God.” The worried Cuban government has contacted the US, and there have been “low, technical level” talks about the issue.