Calm Weather Eases Threat From Oil Spill Off Morocco : Environment: Storms disperse much of huge slick. Danger to stricken tanker also lessens.

Calm weather has lifted a two-week-old threat of massive oil damage to Morocco from a crippled Iranian supertanker after storms dispersed much of a huge slick drifting near the coast, pollution experts said Thursday.

“Even if some oil comes ashore, it will be in isolated patches and easily cleaned up,” two French experts said in a report to their government.

Damage to oyster beds, rich fishing grounds, nature reserves and miles of tourist beaches is now expected to be minimal.

With winds and sea swells dropping, fears also faded that the tanker, the 284,000-ton Kharg 5, would break up and release the nearly 200,000 tons of oil still aboard into the sea.

A Moroccan government communique said that the stricken vessel was now almost 300 miles from the nearest point on the mainland, midway between the Madeira and Canary Islands.

Under tow by three tugs--one British, one Spanish and one Moroccan--the vessel, whose steering was earlier reported to be jammed, was being moved toward open sea.

Experts said that even if it did break up, it was now so far from shore that it would not cause major damage to the environment.

The listing tanker created a huge slick as 70,000 tons of oil poured through a hole blasted in the hull by an explosion.

But the slick has now broken up into small patches. Winds have dropped and changed direction from north-northwest--which pushed the slick directly toward land--to southwest, which should move it parallel to the shore.

“There is a possibility some oil will come ashore, but it is a remote one,” said Brian Dicks, a marine biologist with the International Tanker Owners’ Pollution Federation.

He said that much of the 70,000 tons of light crude--more easily absorbed naturally by the environment than heavy grades--has evaporated or been dispersed by wind and wave action.

The ship zig-zagged down Morocco’s coast leaking oil for more than two weeks after the explosion and fire Dec. 19.

Officials said that as soon as weather permits, the oil remaining aboard the vessel will be transferred to a second Iranian tanker that has arrived on the scene.