A MAJOR oil spill into Brisbane River caused commuter chaos yesterday morning, forcing the closure of some CityCat services until at least today.

Authorities said up to 50 Maritime Safety workers would continue the clean-up today.

At least four pelicans are said to have been contaminated.

Maritime Safety Queensland acting general manager Jim Huggett said the oil was lost during the refuelling of the Korean-owned, Panama-flagged livestock carrier, the GL Lan Xiu at Hamilton Wharves.

He said the recovery would take another few days.

"We're in the process of containing and recovering that oil," he said. "It's too early to indicate what the cause of the incident was . . . (but) the oil has moved upstream this morning with the incoming tide (and) we've got teams out there recovering most of that oil."

Mr Huggett said while no oil spill was good, most of it was behind the ship near the wharf and had been contained.

However, king tides had caused more to flow upstream than they'd hoped.

"There's no risk of the oil moving down to Moreton Bay," he said.

"Most of the mangroves in the area are downstream of the incident. All oils are toxic but on the scale of things this is at the lower end of the scale."

Mr Huggett said the cargo ship was being refuelled by the Valiant III at Hamilton No.4 when the oil spill took place.

Around 2000 head of cattle due to be loaded on to the GL Lan Xiu, bound for Japan, remained in holding yards while authorities investigated.

A BCC spokesman said the oil spill would affect morning services today.

He said buses would ferry affected commuters from the Northshore Hamilton terminal while CityCat services in the area were cut. The last big oil spill in southeast Queensland was in 2009 when the Pacific Adventurer lost 250 tonnes of oil.

Originally published as Oil spill hits CityCat services