(CNN) -- BP said it resumed drilling Monday on a relief well, as efforts to permanently seal the previously leaking Gulf of Mexico oil well appeared to be entering their final stages.
Drilling on the relief well resumed at 2:40 p.m. ET after a massive sleeve protecting the well from sudden, large increases in pressure was successfully installed over the weekend.
Installing the device "resulted in the necessary conditions to commence the finalization of the relief well," Thad Allen, the government's appointed national incident commander in charge of overseeing the oil spill response, said in a statement Monday.
Allen said the relief well remains "the final step that will ensure the well is fully and finally killed".
Drilling had been stopped since August 10 when a tropical storm threatened conditions at the site, forcing the oil company to suspend operations. Since then, weather delays in the storm-prone Gulf as well as scientific and technical debate on how to proceed have extensively prolonged the timeline for definitively plugging the well.
CNN
