Long-term environmental impacts
Monitoring data showed that 840 square kilometers in Bohai Bay had been polluted.
The spill has caused damages to the marine environment around the field, reported the SOA.
Guo Mingke, vice minister of SOA, said that Bohai is a half-enclosed sea with limited water exchange with the outside. Thus, the pollution there will cause more harmful influences compared to open waters.
"Some of the spill will dissolve in water or sink deep into the sea, which will exert long-term impacts on marine environment," added Guo.
About 11 environmental organizations, including Friends of Nature, have sent joint letters to CNOOC and COPC that require them to update the public about the cleanups and apologize for withholding news of the incident.
How much should the penalty be?
Under China's current environmental laws, operators will be fined up to 200,000 yuan if their offshore oil projects result in oceanic pollution.
Zhong Yu, senior action coordinator at Greenpeace, said that "the regulations on marine environmental protection are already outdated and, thus, need urgent improvements," and that the 200,000-yuan fine is "ridiculously" small in terms of the damage caused.
For this, Wang Bin explained that the SOA is still assessing the pollution and may claim environmental compensation from COPC according to relevant laws. He firmly believed that the penalty will be "much more than" 200,000 yuan.
Li Xiaoming also stressed that according to the Marine Environment Protection Law the country can claim ecological compensation, which may make the final penalty an astronomical figure.
