BP’s well finally declared dead five months on

The well is dead. Finally.

A permanent cement plug sealed BP’s well nearly 4km below the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico, five agonising months after an explosion sank a drilling rig and led to the worst offshore oil spill in US history.

Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the federal government’s point man on the disaster, said BP’s well “is effectively dead” and posed no further threat to the Gulf. Allen said a pressure test to ensure the cement plug would hold was completed.