right now, my official position is it will be the middle of august before the well is capped. it's helping as well a turn for the better for the weather and now skimming boats are restarting their clean-up efforts, they were put on hold during hurricane alex. rough seas also delayed plans to hook up the helix-producer which could bring in up to 25,000 barrels of oil a day from the well. now that would increase the overall daily collection capacity to 53,000 barrels of oil a day. bp says it's recovered about 24,575 barrels on wednesday, bringing the total number of barrels removed from the gulf about 706,700. meantime, oral arguments challenging the obama administration's six-month ban on exploratory deepwater drilling began this afternoon in a federal appeals court in louisia louisiana. this follows a scathing report released by an advocacy group with extensive oil industry ties among the court judges, that's