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Of course, we also have the drill ship "enterprise" we can bring back in if necessary and put back over the top of the cap. it's demonstrated it can effectively capture about 15,000. i should also say the helix producer is still ramping up. it should ultimately be able to capture between 0,020,000 and 25,000. >> during the reconstruction will that ever stop because you have to build the pressure up? >> yes. the first step in the closing-in process to do the test will be to stop production of the containment operations on the q4000 and helix producer. that's the very first step in the process b...

Precisely to go, and then we will start the kill operation. >> we have kind of analyzed this almost like trying to get an i.v. and trying to find the some kind of vaein that you can't fid with the small needle and that is what you are doing at 5,000 feet below the bottom of the ocean, is that right? >> well, in fact, almost 18,000 feet from the floor of where the drill ship is where we are starting the operation. >> yes. >> and what we are doing right now is to drill 30 feet at a time and run in the measurement tools to know precisely where we are. most of the time, we are doing measuring work...

Itself. >> in his speech a little while ago, the president said within a few weeks bp was going to be capturing 90% of the oil coming out of that blowout preventure. what happened today? does that show just how tenuous these projections can be? >> i think that's true and of course we've had other problems with that containment cap in the past when the drill ship was hit by lightning, the tower was hit by lightning of course. and one thing we've seen is that the flow lines from the lower marine riser package, the hydraulic and choke line, they're producing over 10,000 barrels a day. that's sort...

Have you gotten any encoura encouragement or discouragement from what you saw? >> you know, the scale of the operation, keith, this has got to be the largest offshore operation ever undertaken. there's three semi submersibles there plus a drill ship and 30 other ships. the coast guard has over 700 people in this operation on a continuous basis. the effort is massive. it shows the weakness in our system where the technology, when it works well, is wonderful. when it fails, it's just massive and the damage is gigantic. it shows a real weakness in our lack of energy policy we've been talking abou...

Distance? have you gotten any encouragement or discouragement from what you saw? >> you know, the scale of the operation, keith, this has got to be the largest offshore operation ever undertaken. there's three semisubmersibles there plus a drill ship and 30 other ships. the coast guard told us they have over 700 people in this operation on a continuous basis. and the effort is massive. it shows the weakness in our system where the technology, when it works well, is wonderful. when it fails, it's just massive and the damage is gigantic. this shows a real weakness in our lack of energy policy we...