The Gulf of Mexico should recover from the massive BP oil spill by the end of 2012, the administrator of the $20 billion victims compensation fund said Wednesday.

By that time, most of the harmful effect of the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history will have dissipated and the economy should have picked up, said Kenneth Feinberg, independent administrator of the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF).

On the basis of the estimate, the fund plans to make final payments of twice the documented 2010 damages minus payments already made through the fund, Feinberg said.