BP said Thursday afternoon that the company finished pouring cement into its blown-out Macondo oil well in the Gulf of Mexico.
BP started the cement job Thursday morning as part of its overall effort to kill the leak for good.
"Monitoring of the well is under way in order to confirm the effectiveness of the procedure,'' the company said in a statement.
BP shares hit two-month highs in early trading in London. They later fell back [BP-GB 431.365 8.15 (+1.92%) ], closing up 0.42 percent. BP [BP 40.68 1.29 (+3.27%) ] shares finished 3 percent higher in New York.
"We would hope the worst is indeed behind the company," one BP shareholder, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.
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.
The end of cementing Thursday was another bright spot as the tide appeared to be turning in the months-long Gulf disaster, with a federal report this week indicating that only about a quarter of the spilled crude remains in the Gulf and is degrading quickly.
