<br/>U.S Coast Guard Commander Thad Allen has said that Engineers have made significant progress towards putting a new cap on the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. Allen, the commander overseeing the spill response, said this could lead to the shutting of the well. BP hopes partly to close the cap today to test the well's integrity.<br/><br/>Meanwhile, the U.S government issued a new deep-water drilling moratorium to replace one struck down in court. The moratorium was reworked by the US interior department in the hope of gaining the approval of a federal court that rejected the Obama administration's earlier ban, saying it was too broad. The new moratorium applies to any deep-water floating drilling facility but is not based on the water depth where drilling occurs. It will end by 30th November.