BP's Capped Well Holds as Waiting Period Ticks By

BP said its capped-off well appeared to be holding steady Friday, about midway into a white-knuckle waiting period in which engineers watched the pressure gauges for signs of a leak.

CNBC Eighty-six days later, Gulf well video shows empty water on July 15, 2010.

Results monitored from control rooms on ships at sea and hundreds of miles away at the company's U.S. headquarters in Houston showed the oil staying inside the cap, rather than escaping through any undiscovered breaches, BP

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[BP  Loading...      ()] vice president Kent Wells said on a conference call.

Four underwater robots scoured the sea floor but had also found no signs of new leaks.

President Barack Obama said Friday the progress was good news, but cautioned an anxious public not to "get too far ahead of ourselves." Obama said the cap was still being tested and there was still an "enormous clean up job" and ensuring quick compensation for Gulf residents and business in the offing.

There was no evidence of a leak in the pipe under the sea floor, Wells said, one of the main concerns. Wells said the results were encouraging 17 hours after valves were shut to trap oil inside the cap, a test that could last up to 48 hours.

He said pressure continued to rise inside the tight-fighting cap, a good sign that oil was not getting out somewhere else. The pressure was more than 6,700 pounds per square inch, above the minimum they were hoping to see, but not yet in the high range of 8,000 to 9,000 psi they were hoping for.

"The pressures we've seen so far are consistent with the engineering analysis work that BP has done," Wells said. "It's been a very steady build."

Wells also said work would resume on a relief well, the oil giant's more permanent solution meant to plug the leak for good underground to end one of the nation's worst environmental catastrophes.

That's also a sign that things were going well. Engineers had stopped drilling one of the wells Thursday in case that bore hole deep underground could be affected by the oil cap effort.

Engineers and scientists continue to monitor the cap's pressure. When the test is complete, more sea floor mapping will be done to detect any damage or deep-water leaks.