Transcript of Thad Allen's

that would exceed the operational envelope for all platforms I briefed the vice president on the current status of what's going on offshore. I'll talk about that in a minute. I was also accompanied by Jane Lubchenco, the NOAA administrator. And we were there as the vice president announced there would be an opening of the fishing areas in the Gulf to expand by 25,000 square miles the area of fishing that's available.

Just a quick update on where we're at regarding what's going on at the well. As you know the projected storm track of the tropical depression that was originally yesterday forecasted to xlingk come ashore somewhere around Miami is going further south now.

There is a variety of tracks that would take it near or over the well site itself. We're under the assumption that somewhere very early in the morning on Saturday we could see storm force winds at the well site.

And we think the storm passing over will probably be about 24 hours in duration. During that time it's very possible we could have wave heights that would exceed the operational envelope for all platforms. So while this is not a hurricane it's a storm that will have probably some significant impact so we're taking appropriate cautions related to that.