New Orleans, Louisiana (CNN) -- A ship described as the world's largest oil skimming vessel has arrived in the Gulf of Mexico, but was awaiting approval to begin work in cleaning up the oil disaster, according to a spokesman for the Taiwanese company that owns it.
The A Whale arrived in the Gulf on Wednesday, the Coast Guard said. It was anchored in Boothville, Lousiana, about an hour south of New Orleans.
"While the ship is ready to work, it still doesn't have approval to engage in the effort," said Frank Maisano, spokesman for TMT Shipping, the vessel's owner and operator, in a statement.
Officials from the company are meeting with BP and the U.S. Coast Guard Thursday morning, he told CNN. "We don't know what will happen," he said, but added it's expected that parameters for a test of the vessel will be discussed -- "they'll give us a plot and we'll test the technology".
"The government is eager to get on board the super skimmer A Whale in the region and see if (it) is effective in skimming oil," the Coast Guard said in a statement. Currently, weather associated with Hurricane Alex -- downgraded to a tropical storm Thursday after making landfall on the Mexican coast -- has resulted in the suspension of skimming operations, the statement said, but "we will maintain close contact with the ship's owners to proceed as soon as weather allows".
A team has been formulated to assess the A Whale's ability to collect oil and other factors, as well as its ability to maneuver at slow speeds, the Coast Guard said. Alterations allowing the ship -- originally built to carry cargo -- to collect oil was completed in mid-June.
The vessel will need a contract with BP before it begins working. If the federal on scene coordinator determines the A Whale would be useful, contract negotiations will begin, subject to the coordinator's approval of funding, according to the Coast Guard.
Meanwhile, forecasters and officials said Alex could affect oil cleanup efforts for days, although it was 600 miles away from the massive spill.
Heavy seas caused by Alex have already disrupted containment booms aimed at limiting the amount of oil reaching shore, Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft told reporters Wednesday. More than 500 oil skimming ships had to return to shore and efforts to burn oil on the surface and break it down through dispersants were put on hold, he said, along with efforts to position a third ship to collect oil at the spill site.
Coast Guard officials will conduct an aerial survey to assess the storm's impact Thursday, Zukunft said.
"Until the weather subsides, all we can do is have everything ready to attack and remove this oil once we have weather that's more conducive," Zukunft said Wednesday.
Residual effects from the storm, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, could prohibit skimming and burning of oil in the Gulf at least until Saturday or Sunday, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said. Winds were 15 to 20 mph at the cleanup site on Wednesday and producing waves 6 to 8 feet high, he said.
"When seas get over 3 feet high, the skimmers become ineffective. They wind up gathering water and not oil," Zukunft said.
One thing that has not been affected -- BP's effort to drill relief wells down to the area where oil is leaking. Weather would have to be very severe to affect that, according to Zukunft, and at this point, BP said it is on track to reach the area in August.
The storm also is having an impact on where the massive oil spill is flowing. Previously, some oil had been reaching Pensacola Beach in Florida, but the storm's prevailing southeast winds have drawn it more toward the environmentally sensitive Mississippi and Chandeleur sounds, off the coast of Mississippi and Louisiana, Zukunft said.
Myers said that's because the storm winds are moving counterclockwise in a huge arc. The strong winds are expected to blow for about three days, pushing the oil back to shore in the area where there already have been dramatic pictures of oil-drenched birds.
In other efforts, the U.S. Navy said Thursday it was sending a silver-colored blimp to aid in oil disaster efforts. The blimp, known as the MZ-3A, will fly slowly over the region in order to view the area where the oil is flowing and how it is coming ashore, and can direct oil skimming operations. It was on the way to the Gulf region as of Thursday from Arizona, the Navy said.
However, the A Whale's "immediate deployment in the Gulf offers the best solution to the Gulf of Mexico spill crisis," the TMT statement said.
Built this year, the A Whale was initially designed to be one of the largest cargo vessels afloat, and was completed at a South Korean shipyard for transporting crude oil and iron ore. However, Maisano said in the statement, when the disaster unfolded, TMT modified the vessel to become "the world's first large-scale skimmer, which can literally swallow millions of barrels of the oil slick in the Gulf".
Its skimming capacity is "at least 250 times" that of the modified fishing boats currently conducting skimming operations, the statement said. It can draw in as much as 500,000 barrels (21 million gallons) of oily water in an eight-to-10 hour cycle.
TMT is also attempting to complete similar vessels in order to help with the Gulf disaster, Maisano said.
Authorities on the ground are busy preparing for future storms as Alex's threat diminishes.
Planners with the Louisiana governor's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness this week created a hurricane evacuation plan with BP, said the office's director, Mark Cooper.
The plan, applicable for the entire hurricane season -- which ends November 30 -- calls for BP's thousands of workers to leave the Louisiana coast at least 16 hours before officials begin evacuating residents.
"We can't have BP blocking our roadways with equipment and personnel," said Cooper.
The plan calls for BP to be back on the scene combating the spill within 72 hours after a hurricane, Cooper said.
Researchers have estimated that between 35,000 barrels (about 1.5 million gallons) and 60,000 barrels (about 2.5 million gallons) of oil have been gushing into the Gulf every day since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank off the coast of Louisiana.
