After months of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico following the fatal BP Deepwater Horizon accident (April 20, 2010), the company has at long last found a way to plug the leak. The cap was put in place earlier this week and valves were closed slowly on Thursday with a successful outcome.

US President Barack Obama has called the work a “positive sign” and the company’s shares jumped on the news (whoop-de-do!). All, I can say is, it was about bloody time and that BP was obviously not losing money at a high enough rate to warrant actually getting this problem fixed sooner.

The company now plans to siphon off around 80,000 barrels of oil a day on to tankers until a relief well is put in place to take the flow. The oilspill has been pouring out up to an estimated 2.5 million gallons of oil every day for three months, which despite the ineffectual use of booms and dispersants is likely to have an ecological and economic effect on the area for many, many years to come. Some livelihoods and much wildlife have been lost forever.

Reuters reports that cleanup over the next 15 years may cost BP up to $100 billion.

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• Crawfisher Drew Landry sings the ‘BP Blues’ to president’s Gulf spill commission
• BP ‘installs new cap’ on oil well
• You: Oil cap success not assured, says BP
• Economic Damage of Drilling Ban to Dwarf Oil Spill, Hecht Says