Mitsui Oil Exploration Mitsui Oil Exploration It was one of 17 Mitsui companies that were spun off on July 19, 1969. Its core areas are Thailand, where it drills principally in the Gulf of Thailand in conjunction with Chevron, and Vietnam and Cambodia. In the United States Mitsui's subsidiary is MOEX USA Corp and is headquartered in 9 Greenway Plaza in Houston. In September 2007 it established subsidiary MOEX Offshore 2007 LLC which entered into a partnership with BP for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. On April 20, 2010, its rig the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, causing a massive oil spill.
Gulf of Mexico BP reached an $18.7bn settlement with the US government, the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, as well as 400 local authorities. To date BP's cost for the clean-up, environmental and economic damages and penalties has reached $54bn. According to the National Response Center, the oil industry has thousands of minor accidents in the Gulf of Mexico every year. On May 12, 2016, a release of oil from subsea infrastructure on Shell's "Brutus" oil rig released 2,100 barrels of oil. This leak created a visible 2 mile by 13 mile oil slick in the sea about 97 miles