Nearly five months after the explosion that unleashed the worst oil spill in U.S. history, the ruptured well at the heart of the disaster has been permanently cemented shut, federal officials announced Sunday.
“Additional regulatory steps will be undertaken, but we can now state, definitively, that the Macondo well poses no continuing threat to the Gulf of Mexico,” former Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the federal government’s point man on the disaster, said in a statement issued Sunday morning.
BP, the oil company that owns the well, began final cementing operations to plug the blowout on Friday. Pressure tests conducted early Sunday confirmed the cement was holding, and the Interior Department agency that regulates offshore drilling pronounced the well dead at 5:54 a.m. (6:54 a.m. ET).
