BP made promising strides in its latest bid to capture some of the oil spewing from its ruptured deep-sea well in the Gulf of Mexico, while President Barack Obama called off an overseas trip and prepared for another visit on Friday to the spill-stricken U.S. Gulf Coast.

After failing days ago to plug the well, BP Plc managed on Thursday to shear away the gushing well pipe a mile below the ocean surface, then lowered a containment cap over the jagged hole left atop the crippled wellhead assembly in its latest bid to curtail the oil flow.