A year after it capped its out-of-control well in the Gulf of Mexico, oil giant BP PLC said Friday it is taking new steps to improve the reliability of the cement used to seal its wells and the fail-safe devices used to prevent blowouts.

The U.S. government welcomed the voluntary measures announced by the British firm - which seemed to target shortcomings addressed in several investigations of the disaster - but also noted that it has already established what it believes are strong safety and environmental standards that all operators are required to meet in order to operate in deep waters.

Eleven men were killed when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded off Louisiana on April 20, 2010, leading to the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history. The well was capped on July 15, 2010, and permanently sealed from the bottom two months after that. The government estimates that some 206 million gallons of oil were released by BP's Macondo well a mile beneath the sea. Tens of billions of dollars have been spent or committed by BP on cleaning up the devastation and compensating victims. More...