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.
Volume and extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill silts and sands onshore. On 26 May 2011, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality extended the state of emergency related to the spill. In April 2012, oil was found dotting of Louisiana's coast. As of December 2012, of coastline remain subject to evaluation and/or cleanup operations. On 15 May 2010, researchers from the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology, aboard the research vessel "RV Pelican", identified oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as long, wide and thick in spots. The shallowest oil plume the group detected was at about ,