it was drilling for oil. there are two different things that happen on platforms in the gulf. you have a rig like the deepwater horizon that drills for oil. once it s done drilling, they essentially put a cork in the hole for lack of a less descriptive phrase. they essentially stop up the hole they ve drilled and the drilling platform goes away. then a whole new platform, a whole different platform actually comes in, uncorks the hole and gets the oil out of the well. two different types of rigs. two different processes. there s drilling and then there s production. drilling done with a drilling rig, production done with a production rig. the production platform pumps the oil back to shore through all of the green pipe lines you see there on the map. those are the green lines. again, drilling and production platforms, two different things. this is sort of oil industry 101. this drilling versus production distinction is at the very heart of a very ugly and very stupid fight going on righ
we know because of the new flow rate numbers we need to increase capacity. additional vessels being brought into the area and anticipate by the end of the month of june and capacity will increase to 53,000 barrels a month. following that thought a decision made will be reached mass capacity with the recovery system we have on the scene with the containment cap. at that point the officers will be unbolt the plans, small section of pipe we needed to shear cut and replace it with a solid bolted on cap that can be linked to a new flexible production system and alloy us to use production platforms and shuttle tankers. once that s in place, we have the capability to increase capacity on the production to 60,000 barrels. that should be somewhere around the middle part of july. we continue to move forward on that. it is proceeding at a pace. regarding the relief wells, development driller three, drilling the first relief well, is now 10,677 feet below the sea
apprised of the developing situation, along the gulf coast, according to the white house. and in the gulf itself, personnel have been evacuated from some of the more than 700 manned oil and gas production rigs in the gulf. there are more than 2,400 production platforms in the gulf right now. we have a team of reporters along the coast covering the progress of hurricane harvey. nbc s kerry sanders is in port lavaca, and nbc s gabe gutierrez is driving through corpus christi. kerry, what does it look like at the moment? reporter: well, as you can see from behind me, the tree is blowing. i don t really need to hold on to this to steady myself, but there are some gusts. i m sort of holding on right now. clearly, we know that there is a hurricane coming, and we know that the wind is picking up. but for anybody who has never been through a hurricane and is standing still by thinking they can survive all of this, this is not a hurricane yet. i m going to show you a little look at the bay he
and already another storm system is bearing down this time on the gulf coast with the potential to dump nearly two feet of rain. they re raising red flags along alabama gulf shores keeping beach goers out of the water. shell and common mobile took their crews off production platforms just in case. louisiana governor bobby jindahl has declared a state of emergency. the weather channel s mike sidle is live for us in new orleans. we re talking about a really heavy rainmaker here, right? reporter: this here and we re watching katia. let s go to the satellite loop. this has both systems. the one in the left is the gulf the tropical depression that may become a storm. on the right katia. reupgraded to hurricane status. 75 miles per hour winds. it s well east of the islands. now it s looking more and more likely that we will have some kind of issue with it on parts of the east coast. we don t know if it s going to be a direct hit. it s going to be sometime in the
the sun was shining about a half hour ago, it s not now and we can expect to have that kind of unexpected activity by this described storm as unpredictable. harris: ahead of the storm, listen to this. 237 oil and gas production platforms and nearly two dozen drilling rigs evacuated now in the gulf of mexico. the result, as i mentioned moments ago, 60% of oil production in the gulf and more than half of gas production cut. energy companies say they can restart production pretty quickly if the rigs are not damaged by the storm. we have fox team coverage right now. casey stegall in new orleans and maria molina is in the extreme weather system tracking the storm. let s go to casey first. the number of evacuees, i understand, now in the thousands in the city where you are. yeah. about 6,000 to be exact. we are in the middle of a torrential downpour at the moment. we have seen that for the better part of the last two hours or so. with all of the water that is