ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION<br/> <br />STORY: A cloud of explosive natural gas boiling out of the North Sea from a leak at Total's Elgin platform forced wider evacuations off the Scottish coast on Tuesday as the French firm warned it may take six months to halt the flow.<br/> <br />Dubbed "the well from hell" by a Norwegian environmentalist who said the high pressure of the undersea reservoirs in the field made it especially hard to shut off, a plume of gas was visible over the platform, officials said, and a sheen of oil, also produced from the rig, was spreading over the water.<br/> <br />Officials imposed an air and sea exclusion zone around the platform, which had been pumping 9 million cubic metres of gas per day or three percent of Britain's natural gas output and lies some 150 miles (240 km) east of the city of Aberdeen.
