It's has been over a month since BP's (BP) oil well in the Gulf of Mexico exploded and collapsed, and the company has still not been able to stop the flow of oil into the ocean. The company's engineers are now hoping that they finally will be able to stop the leak as early as the 25th.

There has been a lot of debate over just how much oil is being leaked into the ocean. One thing is for sure: any oil is too much oil. Everyone is waiting to hear the good news that BP has been able to successfully stop the oil from spewing into the gulf.

The stock chart of oil services company Halliburton Company (HAL) has formed a double-top, a bearish technical pattern, and could also become a bear-hug.

The stock broke below the key, 50-day moving average right about the time of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and has since dropped below the 200-day moving average -- the toughest moving average to break in trading.

It has been three weeks since a BP (BP) oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, and still the company has not been able to stop oil from spewing into the gulf. Friday, the companies involved got a earful from President Obama.

The three companies involved in the oil spill are BP, Transocean Offshore (RIG) and Halliburton (HAL).

U.K. brokerage house Panmure Gordon upgraded BP (BP) Wednesday, elevating the oil company rating to buy from sell. Panmure Gordon contends that the market reaction to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is overdone, citing that it is unlikely BP will have to cut its dividend.

The oil firm could pay as much as $2 billion to bring the well under control, the rating house said. In addition, BP will have to pay 65% of the estimated $10 billion cost on damage to fishing and tourism along with $75 million punitive damages. Yes, BP could be fined $75 million for destroying the Gulf of Mexico (more or less). This fine could become greater if BP is found grossly negligent or if it engaged in willful misconduct.

Any institution that says it can forecast with any confidence the impact of the BP Plc. (BP) Gulf of Mexico oil spill on energy policy is asking someone to put a lot of trust in the organization's powers of prediction -- certainly more than an investor should.

And the reason is obvious enough: The scope of the oil spill's damage will vary depending on the weather, ocean currents, the size of the spill, technology, the size of the containment and repair effort -- all of which may vary over the coming weeks.

What is certain is that the spill has damaged the environment and restructured the energy debate in Washington. Before the spill, the assumption was that oil companies had plans in place to deal with a large, offshore spill. BP has demonstrated that some oil companies may not -- a reality that throws into doubt the safety of deep-water drilling for oil. How can you drill one, two, three miles below sea-level if it's uncertain that the company can contain a spill, and even less likely that it can do so quickly?

Blame the Greeks... Why should today be any different? The fear is that the Greek debt crisis is ready to spread. You have heard it before, and you will continue to hear it again. Maybe this is just the excuse the bears needed to take control. Suddenly, the VIX was back above 25 for the first time since February.

Here were today's closing bell levels:

Dow 10,926.77 -225.06 (-2.02%)
S&P 500 1,173.60 -28.66 (-2.38%)
Nasdaq 2,424.25 -74.49 (-2.98%)

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This year, you can expect experienced catastrophe bond issuers in the insurance and reinsurance sectors to dominate the market, as they did in 2009. Instead of replacing maturing bonds, however, many will be turning to new transactions. Fresh moves are likely, therefore, in a sector that could double last year's issuance total and at least approach the 2007 record of $7 billion in risk capital.

Eighteen tranches of eight cat bonds are set to mature in the second quarter, according to the Thomson Reuters Insurance Linked Securities Community. On the eve of hurricane season in the Gulf of Mexico, $2.77 billion in risk capital will mature, including State Farm's $1.2 billion Merna Re transaction, the largest transaction in the history of this form of risk transfer. Only part of Merna Re will be replaced by Merna II, with industry trade publication Trading Risk, which is put out by the Insurance Insider, reporting that the $250 million successor to Merna Re has been upsized to $700 million.

Today is supposed the first day of earnings season, yet few of the major stocks were big movers. The markets were strong at the start and in pre-market trading, yet the gains were challenged throughout the trading day. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,664.52 +46.33 (0.44%)
S&P 500 1,147.01 +2.03 (0.18%)
Nasdaq 2,312.41 -4.76 (-0.21%)

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The oil industry has been working hard to find new oil reserves, and so far this year the efforts have been paying off.

It has been a year with some major discoveries that have put the oil industry in a good position to make it the year with the highest level of new discoveries since 2000.

A big reason for the increase in discoveries is improvements in technology that has allowed oil hunters to drill deeper and break through tougher rocks than they were previously able to do.

The "Tiber" field discovered by BP in deep water about 250 miles off the coast of Houston is probably the deepest drill on record, more than 6.5 miles. deep. Analysts estimate that the field holds about 3 billion barrels of oil, of which 1 billion barrels are recoverable with today's technology.

BP PLC (NYSE: BP) also owns another big oil field called "Kaskida" in the Gulf of Mexico. Together these two fields could boost BP's oil production from 400,000 barrels per day to 650,000 bpd.

Oil rose for a fourth straight day Thursday as Tropical Storm Gustav prepared to enter the Gulf of Mexico causing oil / natural gas companies to evaluate oil rigs in the area.

Oil rose above $120 a barrel earlier Thursday morning, but is now trading below that level. Oil has risen about $10 in a week on hurricane concerns and geopolitical tensions.

The other, major energy commodities also jumped Thursday morning on news of storm's likely track. Unleaded gasoline rose 6 cents to $3.12 per gallon, heating oil increased about 6 cents to $3.32 per gallon, and natural gas climbed 8 cents to $8.69 per million BTUs.

As of 8 a.m. EDT, Gustav was located about 70 miles east of Jamaica at 17.8N Latitude and 75.6W Longitude, moving west/southwest at 6 mph, with top wind speeds of 70 miles per hour, according to weather.com. Forecasters expect Gustav to track west/northwest, enter the Gulf of Mexico, strengthen to hurricane status, and strike the U.S mainland between Houston and the Florida Panhandle, with the most likely landfall being Louisiana.

The week has barely gotten under way and oil has already reached new record highs. Last Friday we saw a new intraday high of $92.22, but that record was shattered today with prices moving up as high as $93.20 earlier in the session, and are currently trading up $0.97 to $92.83.

Last Friday I took a look at a look at several factors that have been pushing prices higher, and these are all still in effect, but today's move comes from a new source of supply concerns out of Mexico. Today's jump to new highs was spurred on by news that a storm in the Gulf of Mexico was forcing Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, to cut back about 600,000 barrels a day worth of oil production.

Pemex announced yesterday that bad weather had already forced the oil company to cut back about 200,000 barrels of production and that another 400,000 barrel cut was on the way. The company produces on average around 3.2 million barrels a day.

Chevron Corp (CVX) announced today that they had successfully finished a test run at their Jack field in the Gulf of Mexico. During the test, Chevron reported that they, along with partners Devon Energy Corp. and Statoil ASA, were successful in producing around 6,000 barrels a day from the company's Jack well, a five-mile-deep well in the Gulf of Mexico's lower tertiary range.

While you may be thinking that 6,000 barrels a day output is not much to be hopeful about, what this does mean is that Chevron and other big oil companies now have the motivation to put more resources to work in the area. The area in question, the lower-tertiary range, is deeper than previously-exploited fields in the Gulf, with much much older rock formations. Many companies have been fearful of exploring these areas out of concerns that the rocks in question would be too tight from which to pull oil out, without the costs being too high to justify. Well, according to Larry Nichols, Devon's chairman and chief executive, that is just not the case and the area can be developed profitably.

If the area is successfully developed, the results could be phenomenal. Estimates for the recent findings in the Gulf of Mexico's lower-tertiary range anywhere from three to fifteen billion barrels of reserve oil, although much of the area has yet to be explored at all, and the actual finding could be even higher than estimated.