You had wells that were at varying degrees of drilling depth.

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing

While drilling in that depth of water was prohibitively expensive a decade ago, it's now easy for a company Triton's size to rent a drillship to find the oil and set up a floating production platform to process it.

FORBES: One Tamed Wildcat

In an email Thursday to oil and gas industry officials, a senior MMS official wrote: "Until further notice we have been informed not to approve or allow any drilling, " regardless of water depth.

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According to Golborne, the first stage of drilling on Plan B has reached a depth of 1, 640 feet (500 meters) and will pierce the ceiling of the mine shaft where the men are trapped this weekend.

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Cairn reported one of its wells did not achieve a commercial find while another failed to reach target depth before the end of the Arctic drilling season.

BBC: Greenland blow for Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy

McMoran has since drilled a second well into Davy Jones (using a fatter pipe), proving that the reservoir structure stretches over 20, 000 acres, and is now drilling a second Blackbeard well, currently at a depth of 25, 200 feet.

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Stolz said state and federal agencies failed to do detailed reviews, so a Duquesne team has been monitoring water quality and surveying households in the Woodlands, in what is one of the most in-depth surveys of alleged impacts of gas drilling in the nation.

NPR: Cause Of Off-Color, Fetid Water Eludes Pa. Town

At that depth stopping the flow with a deadweight of drilling fluid should create few problems, once the exceedingly difficult challenge of hitting the well is met.

ECONOMIST: The Gulf oil spill

If all went without the tiniest hiccup, something that never happens when you are drilling five miles below the surface, and if the drilling proceeded at 150 feet per day as it has been recently, they could drill to the targeted depth in just five more days.

FORBES: Magazine Article