Cairn reported one of its wells did not achieve a commercial find while another failed to reach targetdepth before the end of the Arctic drilling season.
The idea was to reach a targetdepth of 9, 500 feet in a Bina Bawi field around New Year's and uncork what seismic studies indicate could be 500 million barrels of oil.
The risks of a spill are lower because the target is primarily gas, and the shallow water depth (approx. 100 ft) allows the blowout preventer to be located on the rig at the surface.
It just became possible, thanks to a laser camera developed by physicists at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh, UK. You can pretty much see how it works from the images above -- laser beams are bounced off the target and the duration of their return journey is measured precisely enough to detect millimeter depth changes even at extreme distances.