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Industry feel that the casing must have been damaged because of the power of that well, the pressure of that reservoir, and so let's kind of not go to the stress tests until we're ready to go with the -- with the relief wells because the relief well building up a column of heavy mud could be the best case to shut down the flow. >> now, as i understand it, john, correct me where i'm wrong here, the goal was to gradually close this cap so that you're like tightening the funnel so it gets stronger and stronger with pressure in the middle and decide at some point whether that strong pressure comin...

>> so i think it's prudent under the conditions that are there, and there are many in the industry feel that the casing must have been damaged because of the power of that well, the pressure of that reservoir, and so let's kind of not go to the stress tests until we're ready to go with the -- with the relief wells because the relief well building up a column of heavy mud could be the best case to shut down the flow. >> now, as i understand it, john, correct me where i'm wrong here, the goal was to gradually close this cap so that you're like tightening the funnel so it gets stronger and strong...

Not determine thank at all. martha: everybody has very big expectations for that vessel. talk to me about the drilling of these relief wells, phil. because thankfully, because it's so far down in the ocean, the weather is not really having a big impact on that process, is it? >> right. no, they're going down, the target is about 18,000 feet below the surface. 18,000 feet. and right now, the first relief well, which is about two months into the process of going down, is at 17,700 feet, the second relief well is 14,000 feet down, but the first one is about within 400 feet of interception with th...

>> reporter: good morning, alex. . >> let's get to what he's saying right now. >> bob dudley in charge of the cleanup for bp said in the houston chronicle this morning that he thinks bp can cap the well ahead of schedule, maybe around the first of august. the coast guard has been saying they could cap the well around the middle of august. but bob dudley says if we don't have anymore storms in the gulf of mexico, his crews can get it done by the first of august. some oil analysts have been predicting that bp could cap this well perhaps by the middle of july. that's just a couple of weeks from n...

We have watched with some underwater pictures intently for nearly four months now. the worst environmental disaster in the country's history ravaged the gulf, spilling more oil than the "exxon valdez" and put thousands of people out of work. 11 people died april 20th aboard the deepwater horizon rig. since the explosion, the government estimates 206 million gallons of oil spilled into the gulf. the government's man in charge of the spill, thad allen, has news conference planned to talk about the test results. go to nbc news correspondent charles hadlock in venice, louisiana, now. so they are l...