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With BP Oil Gusher Halted, Obama is Cautiously Optimistic
President Obama is cautiously optimistic about the BP oil spill now that the runaway well has finally stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, but says the effort to kill BP's gusher is far from over.

By Mara Gay and Lauren Frayer, Aolnews.com

President Obama is cautiously optimistic about the BP oil spill now that the runaway well has finally stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, but says the effort to kill BP's gusher is far from over.

"We're moving in the right direction but I don't want us to get too far ahead of ourselves," Obama told reporters at the White House this morning.

News on Thursday that the broken well had finally stopped spewing thousands of barrels of crude into the gulf led many to hope that significant progress had been made toward ending the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history. But while the president called the successful capping of the well "good news," he said relief wells are still likely to be the ultimate solution.

The president also noted that the cleanup from the 3-month-old disaster is far from complete, and kept up pressure on the oil company. "BP is going to be paying for the damage that it has caused," Obama said.

Euphoria initially seemed to hit financial markets more than gulf residents this morning, with BP's stock rising 8 percent before retreating to about half that gain in London trading. BP vice president Kent Wells told reporters Thursday he's "excited" the well is finally capped.

But any celebrations might be short-lived. The top incident commander, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, issued a statement saying it "remains likely" that BP will have to reopen valves and allow oil to once again spew out into the gulf. "This isn't over," Allen said, according to Bloomberg News.

BP's website ran a similar caveat: "Even if no oil is released during the test, this will not be an indication that oil and gas flow from the wellbore has been permanently stopped," it said.

Allen said that even if the well cap has to be reopened, BP hopes to collect most of the oil -- up to 80,000 barrels a day -- by siphoning it up into tankers floating on the surface, until the well can be permanently plugged. Two relief wells due to come online next month remain the only permanent solution, and BP hopes those wells can relieve pressure from the capped gusher by tapping into the same oil source deep under the sea floor.

BP's Wells later told The New York Times that he's "very pleased that there's no oil going into the Gulf of Mexico."

"But we just started the test and I don't want to create a false sense of excitement," he cautioned.

Still, some Gulf Coast residents today are celebrating the best news they've had in nearly three months.

"It's a huge relief," Geoffrey Lane, a 43-year-old landscaper vacationing in Florida, told The Associated Press. "At least now their focus can switch to get what's there out of the water."

"It's freaking wonderful," Louisiana shrimper Gary Kiger, 39, told the AP.

But others are adopting a more "wait-and-see" approach.

"We're doing a little bit of celebrating, but not too much," Louisiana oysterman Wilbert Collins told the Houston Chronicle. "We've got to wait and see if the cap works. And then we've got to wait until the gulf clears up."

Still others are downright cynical about BP, having heard the company's previous promises to plug the well much earlier over the past three months. Many say Thursday's successful cap tests represent too little, too late.

"It's like putting a Band-Aid on a dead man, in my opinion," Jeff Ussury, a 48-year-old shell fisherman, told the Times. Of BP, he said, "I started out kind of believing in them ... but I don't believe in them at all anymore."

On Thursday, BP engineers maneuvered underwater robots to close the third and final giant valve on an 18-foot high, 150,000-pound stack of metal pipes and machinery that was lowered over the blown-out well on Monday. They closed the first two valves quickly, but they discovered a leak in a hose attached to the third and had to repair that before finally shutting the last valve. Underwater video streaming live online shows no more oil spewing out of the cap -- meaning the well has been plugged for the first time since April 20, when an explosion killed 11 workers and unleashed what became the worst-ever spill in American history.

Now, BP engineers are doing more pressure tests, watching the cap closely for possible leaks or signs that the pressure is either too low -- meaning that some oil or natural gas is escaping -- or too high, risking a potential rupture on the equipment. That's the scenario Allen described, in which BP would have to reopen the vents.

Today's pressure tests are expected to run into Saturday. "If at any point the tests need to be suspended, we will do that," Wells said, according to the Houston Chronicle.

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