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
Environmental impact of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that the damage from the spill would rapidly resolve, three years into the recovery dolphins continue to die, fish are showing strange lesions, corals in the gulf have died and oil still remains in some marsh areas. Due to both its size and the way it was handled, there is little previous research to predict long-term effects. At the 2013 "Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Science Conference", oceanographer David Hollander presented data that showed as much as one-third of the oil released during the spill may still be in the gulf. Researchers described a phenomenon called "dirty blizzard":