Many local officials have expressed concern that the moratorium on some drilling operations that the president declared could end up harming the Gulf Coast economy as it reels from the oil spill. President Obama said that if a commission he has appointed to study the safety of offshore drilling is able to reach conclusions about how such drilling can be done safely, he would be open to allowing drilling to resume sooner.

“We discovered that companies like BP, who had provided assurances that they had failsafe, back-up, redundant systems, in fact not only didn’t have failsafe systems but had no idea what to do when those failsafe systems broke down,” he said.

In response to the president’s comments, BP said later on Friday that it would be sending another payment this month to people and businesses who lost income due to the oil spill. With the second payment, it said, it will have spent $84 million reimbursing people for their loss of income.

“We deeply regret the impact the oil spill has had on individuals and businesses, and understand the need for quick and reasonable compensation,” Doug Suttles, its chief operating officer, said in a statement.

Image Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida, Lisa Jackson, the the Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator and Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard greeted President Obama in New Orleans on Friday. Credit... Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

As for efforts to stanch the flow of oil from the leaking well, Adm. Thad W. Allen of the Coast Guard, who is commanding the federal response to the disaster, said earlier in the day that some oil had been collected in a cap that was placed over the well and that it was beginning to be funneled up to a ship on the surface. But he noted that a great deal of oil was still escaping, by design, through vents in the cap. The vents were intended to let some oil out in order to keep cold Gulf water from rushing in and forming icy hydrates that could block the flow of captured oil to the surface.

Until those vents are closed, it will not be clear whether the cap is seated tightly enough on the cut end of the well’s riser pipe to prevent large amounts of oil from continuing to pour into the Gulf of Mexico, Admiral Allen said. He said that current plans call for closing those vents on Friday.