United States offshore drilling debate recently, Russia has begun drilling in the black sea with a Chinese-made oil rig, Scarabeo 9. Since the rig wasn't built in the U.S. and was agreed to before the imposition of additional sanctions by the E.U. in 2014, Russia has been able to avoid sanctions and operate the rig. Offshore facilities pose an environmental risk of oil spills. On April 20, 2010, an underwater blowout and subsequent explosion and fire destroyed the "Deepwater Horizon" rig owned by Transocean Ltd. and operating in the Gulf of Mexico under lease to energy giant BP, resulting in the largest oil spill in
Mega Borg Oil Spill Mega Borg Oil Spill The "Mega Borg" Oil Spill occurred in the Gulf of Mexico on June 8, 1990, roughly 50 miles off the coast of Texas, when the oil tanker "Mega Borg" caught on fire and exploded. The cleanup was one of the first practical uses of bioremediation. At 11:30 PM on the evening of Saturday June 8, 1990, an explosion in the cargo room of the Norwegian oil tanker the "Mega Borg" “ruptured the bulkhead between the pump room and the engine room”, causing the ship to catch fire and begin to leak oil. The 853-foot-long, 15-year-old vessel