BP Oil Spill: Clean-Up Stocks to Watch

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- As BP(BP) continues to face mounting cleanup costs from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, other companies are benefiting from its pain.

Among them, of course, are the clean up companies themselves.

Norwell, MA-based Clean Harbors(CLH) is "one of the biggest companies to benefit from the oil spill," according to Toon van Beeck, an analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. Indeed, Clean Harbors is already estimating that the event will result in an increase in second-quarter revenues of about $53 million to $70 million.

Clean Harbors is involved in many aspects of the spill response, including containment, removal, disposal and recycling of the recovered oil. Its "stock price jumped a lot when the disaster happened," van Beeck said. "They also came out saying their industry has been stronger." Shares of Clean Harbors have jumped about 23% since April 20, when the oil crisis began.

Van Beeck says that BP has used Clean Harbors before, and the two companies have a good relationship.

The U.S. remediation and environmental cleanup services industry has experienced a great deal of growth over the last few years, given the enormity of natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. According to IBISWorld, it was a $10.3 billion industry in 2004, but then grew by about 12.4% in revenue in 2005, then by about 20% in 2006, in the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina, to about a $13.8 billion.