By Kristen Hays
Houston - BP pumped cement down its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well on Thursday, sealing it off and setting up a planned permanent kill later this month of the source of the world's worst marine spill.
The cementing operation, to continue through Friday, followed earlier injections of heavy drilling mud this week that had subdued the upward pressure of the oil and gas. The deepwater Macondo well was provisionally capped in mid-July.
"This is not the end, but it will virtually assure us that no oil will be leaking into the environment," retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, who oversees the US oil spill response operation, said at a briefing in Washington.
The so-called "static kill" from the top is due to be finished off with a "bottom kill" later in August of more mud and cement injected through a relief well that will intersect the well shaft. This will be the final solution to plug the reservoir 4 000m beneath the seabed.
"I will declare this well dead once we've intercepted the annulus (the space between the well pipe and surrounding rock) and we've assessed how much mud or cement we need to do from the bottom to finally kill this well," Allen said.
Progress in shutting down the cause of an environmental disaster for the US Gulf Coast is a relief for both BP, whose image and stock took a beating, and US President Barack Obama, whose approval ratings also suffered over criticism of his administration's handling of the spill.
Reflecting hopes that an end to the 108-day-old drama is now in sight, BP shares hit two-month highs in early trading in London. They later fell back, closing up 0.42 percent. BP shares were up three percent in afternoon trading in New York.
"We would hope the worst is indeed behind the company," one BP shareholder, who asked not to be named, told reporters.
BP shares have gained strongly since hitting a 14-year low on June 25. "Nobody thinks they (BP) are going to go bust in the next five years any more," said Iain Armstrong, an analyst at Brewin Dolphin.
BP, whose market value has fallen more than a third since the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and sinking in April that triggered the spill, has said it would sell about $30-billion in assets to cover costs related to the spill. - Reuters