Whether or not a caisson was used, the oil from the containment assembly would then pass through a manifold a sort of switching yard for pipes to one or more floating risers leading to the surface and held vertical by buoys.
Smith says that by subcontracting some of the work abroad--for example, the intake manifold in a car's air system--these contractors can add 20 points to that gross margin, and that's after paying Smith his fee of 5% to 7% of the foreign invoices.
"The evident destruction of the collection manifold is a big deal in that this by itself is likely to result in immediate cessation of oil flow from the area, " said Jonathan Hutson, a spokesman for the project, which is led by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative.