[citation needed] The news of the oil spill was withheld by the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) for a month.
[6] Outside of the spill area, dead seaweed and rotting fish can be seen around Nanhuangcheng island (南隍城島) in Shandong province.
[6] "The oil, containing toxic substances and heavy metals, will greatly affect the growth of marine lives that live on the seabed, such as clams, scallops and some kinds of crabs," Xinhua reported last week quoting Cui Wenlin, director of the environmental monitoring centre with the North China Sea branch of the SOA.
Bohai is a half-closed sea with comparatively low self-clean ability due to limited water exchange with the outside, he added.
The Chinese used the minor spill to strong arm ConocoPhillips into giving up operatorship of the platform and pay a ridiculous fine.
Zhong Yu, senior action coordinator of Greenpeace, an international environmental organization, told Xinhua that “the amount is questionable” because, apart from ConocoPhillips and the SOA, ‘no third party attended the assessment’.
In addition, ConocoPhillips sent an open letter to 11 environmental organizations and CNOOC Ltd inviting them to visit the scene of the leak to investigate the incident and its aftermath.
The next day, in China's largest English language newspaper, a front-page story began with, "A mean ConocoPhillips media relations man, took journalists offshore to see major oil spill.
By Wednesday afternoon, CNOOC finished cleaning up an oil slick near the oilfield and gradually resumed production.