Factbox: Developments in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill

(Reuters) - Here are developments in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest in U.S. history:

SPILL CONTAINMENT EFFORTS

* BP succeeded on Thursday in cutting a ruptured oil pipe in the Gulf of Mexico and hopes to start funneling oil and gas to the surface later in the day, U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen said.

* Allen, who is overseeing U.S. government operations in response to the disaster, hailed the latest effort to contain the six-week-old leak as "a significant step forward".

* He said BP would begin collecting some of the leaking oil in a containment cap and bringing it to a ship on the surface. "The next step will be to put the containment cap over what's left of the riser pipe ... and start to see if we can move gas and oil up the pipe, hopefully to start flaring off gas and start production later on today."

* The ultimate solution remains the drilling of two relief wells to be completed in August, an expensive but more reliable way to intercept and cap the leaking well. Allen said BP was "slightly ahead of schedule" in this effort.

* BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward said the next 12 to 24 hours will determine whether the capping operation will succeed.

OIL SLICK THREAT

* Tar balls and other oil debris from the giant, fragmented slick has reached Alabama's Dauphin Island, parts of Mississippi, and were less than 10 miles from Florida's northwest Panhandle coast.

* The Coast Guard said late on Thursday that oil spill investigators were responding to renewed reports of tar balls and other oily debris near several islands in the Florida Keys, which extend from the southern tip of the Florida peninsula.

* The U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research projected the oil slick would be driven by wind and currents around the Florida peninsula by early summer and up the East Coast, possibly as far as North Carolina.

* The NOAA forecast was a sober reminder that oil from the unchecked spill, broken up and carried by winds and ocean currents, could threaten a vast area of the U.S. Gulf Coast, including Florida, as well as Cuba and Mexico.

POLITICS

* President Barack Obama will return to the Louisiana Gulf Coast again on Friday to assess latest developments, the White House said. Obama told CNN in an interview that BP had felt his anger but had not been as quick in its response to the disaster as he desired.

COMPANY NEWS

* BP will speak with analysts on Friday, a spokeswoman for the company said after analysts pointed to a planned conference call as one possible reason for a slight recovery in its battered shares. BP shares closed up more than 4 percent on the New York Stock Exchange.

* Two US senators said BP should suspend any plans to pay out shareholder dividends until the full costs for cleaning up the oil spill are calculated.

* Fitch Ratings downgraded BP, reversing its view that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill would have a limited financial impact on the company. The agency downgraded its rating on BP debt to AA from AA+ and attached a negative outlook, citing substantial additional risks including clean-up and legal costs.

* Moody's Investor Service said reinsurers had bumped up prices for offshore energy-related insurance premiums by 50 percent following insurance industry losses of up to $3.5 billion from the oil spill. Total insured losses from the worst oil spill in U.S. history are expected to be between $1.4 billion and $3.5 billion, although losses would be significantly higher if BP had purchased liability insurance instead of self-insuring its risks through its captive insurance program, said Moody's.

* BP's total financial cost of the response to the disaster stands at $990 million, and is rising. The Obama administration said it had sent a preliminary bill for $69 million to BP and "other responsible parties" to cover oil spill costs.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"BP has ruined the island, our way of life, and our tranquility. There isn't any money in the world that will make up for what they have done," said Vickie Connoly, owner of a pub on Dauphin Island, a sleepy tourist haven in Alabama.

"They can't bring back our lives," she said.

(Writing by Alan Elsner; editing by David Storey and Paul Simao)