Just ran across This story at the Dailymail.
Explosive gas cloud spewing from leaking 'well from hell' off British coast is growing and could take six months to stop, experts warn
A giant explosive cloud hanging over a North Sea rig could take six months to clear and may expand towards the Scottish coast, it was warned today.
The huge underwater reservoir tapped by oil giant Total's Elgin platform, which sits 150 miles from Aberdeen, is known as the 'well from hell' because it is so difficult to plug.
An exclusion zone stretching up to four miles has been set up around the platform because it could explode.
The exact source of the leak is still a mystery but it is escaping out of the platform, which has pumped gas and oil to Britain for the past decade.
Total say they are considering a drilling relief well to divert the gas, which would be a safe way to end the crisis, but it could take up to six months.
Yeah... that don't sound good. Seems like tthe perfect time we should rush to build some gas pipelines here in the States disregarding enviromental impact studies.
Coastguards have today demanded shipping stays at least two miles away, planes must keep a distance of three miles, while rigs up to four miles away are being emptied in case they get caught up in any explosion.
'This is the well from hell,' said Frederic Hauge, head of Bellona, a leading Norwegian group that closely monitors the oil industry.
'This problem is out of control and is only going to get bigger and bigger,' he added, saying the high pressure of the undersea reservoirs in the North Sea field made it especially hard to shut off.
This of course is going to hurt the bottom line and I am sure we will all experience some more 'trickledown' speculation effect.
Fears have risen because the Total rig is now surrounded by a giant gas cloud, with a sheen of liquid gas on the water - a tell-tale sign there is a large leak.
Total's shares dived about five percent today as it scrambled to present a strategy to deal with the leak.