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What if the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had taken place in China? It’s not an idle question: China is stepping up efforts to tap its offshore resources, which contain between a quarter and a third of the country’s oil and gas reserves.

However a recent oil spill in the Bohai Bay – that was subsequently covered up for nearly a month – has prompted a new fear: Could a major oil spill happen in China and never even be reported at all?

The Bohai Bay spill seems to have narrowly avoided just such a fate. The first oil leak was spotted on June 4 and operators say they promptly reported it to the government; a second leak was reported on June 17.

However the spill wasn’t reported to the public until nearly a month later, when it was revealed in an expose by the Chinese newspaper Southern Weekend.

The well is operated by ConocoPhillips, and majority owned by Cnooc, China’s biggest offshore oil producer.

Descriptions of what happened at the site bring a certain sense of déjà vu. As Cnooc put it in a Wednesday statement:

“A seepage of oil from the seabed was found near the Platform B in early June. It is the first of its kind occurred in China and the cause is still subject to further study and analysis. It was also observed in mid June that one well being drilled in Platform C occurred a small-scale influx, resulting in another oil spill. . . .

According to the statement of the [State Oceanic Administration] the above incidents have certain impact on the marine environment. . . resulting in about 840 square kilometers of seawater worse than Grade IV. Through those measures taken by the Operator such as reducing pressure in Platform B and implementing a cementing procedure in Platform C, the above incidents were well controlled on June 19 and 21 respectively.

As of July 4, there is no obvious oil slick on the sea surface. Only very small amount of oil sheen can be observed occasionally near Platform B and C.”

Chinese authorities say that an investigation has found ConocoPhillips at fault and the company will be fined at least Rmb200,000 ($31,000).

Although neither the companies nor the government have given an estimate for how much oil was released into the ocean by the two spills, reports in coastal Shandong, which is as close as 40km to the well in some places, say local fishermen have noticed unusual numbers of dead fish.

“My revenue last month was more than 50,000 yuan less compared with same period of last year,” a Shandong fisherman told the state-owned Jiefang Daily. Media outcry prompted the government to hold a press conference on Tuesday—the first official acknowledgment of the spill—where officials said a cleanup was underway and that the causes of the spill were being investigated.

Chinese state-owned media, traditionally reluctant to criticize the government, have railed against the cover up. An editorial in the Global Times said:

“We cannot help but wonder: Is the [State Oceanic Administration] a serious watchdog that exists to prevent bigger incidents from happening, or a loving parent who is over-protective of his own child? . . it is not acceptable that the [State Oceanic Administration], which had learned about the incident in early June, hold the news until a month later.”

Although the oil slicks may be largely dispersed by now, the challenge for China remains: in an atmosphere of low transparency and little disclosure, how can industrial accidents and environmental disasters be dealt with?

As Cnooc and others keep expanding their deepwater drilling in China, the import of that question will only grow.

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