Page 6 - Drilling Process News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

>> reporter: before the exploretary well exploded and set in motion the massive oil spill threatening the entire gulf of mexico, the interior department exempted the oil company from intense regulatory scrutiny. they were granted what is known as categorical exemption from the minimal management service which reports to the interior secretary ken salazar. that means the exploratory drilling process and plans to deal with a spill if one should occur evaded several environmental reviews. >> they cut corners and went straight to drilling the other activities and didn't even take a look at some of...

Miners had gotten into a sort of rescue chamber. we believe if by some miracle they had gotten inside they'd have about 24 hours of supply left of oxygen. authorities say there is time if chance against chance they did get in there but authorities say at this point they cannot risk the lives of 32 rescue workers even to save the lives of four. >> so, brian, what are they doing right now to prepare for a re-entry? what kind of operations are taking place around the mine that would allow them to go back in later on this evening at i think you said 7:00 tonight? >> reporter: well, let's go back a...

Killed 25 workers, but there is a slim chanlsz that four missing miners may be alive. it's not clear yet when the rescue attempt can resume, but west virginia governor, joe manchin, said we should know by the end of the day. let's go straight to west virginia. brooke baldwin standing by there. brooke, any update on that? >> reporter: yeah, you know, we should be hearing from the governor, hopefully, ali, in about an hour and a half. that's really the next opportunity we as members of the media will have as far as any kind of progress update, because you mentioned it, we all want to know when...

It's sort of the same kind of drilling process that you use to drill oil. sort of a three-story rig that is drilling down into the ground, fairly slowly, by our perspective, and they got one of these holes down a thousand feet and they said they did it so quickly that they started a second one very quickly with that same rig. there is another one that's drilling at about the same time so they're hoping to get three holes down at the same time. that helps them get some of this gas out of there. not only methane, which is explosive, but also carbon monoxide, equally deadly. what they're trying t...

Close proximity, that a lot of the noise we're hearing with those microphones naturally are going to be the drilling process that's actually going on. we need a quiet period where nothing is being used, no equipment is being used. everything shuts down for a short period of time. put the three shots off and then we'll watch the monitoring equipment, the seismic equipment to see if anything is detected. >> when you say shots, what exactly are they, kevin? they're not gunshots. you're banging on the pipe. >> no, it's like basically setting off a -- some dynamite charges on the surface that can b...