Oil firms are searching harder in more remote places, such as the Arctic and the deep seas off Brazil.

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But this latest fiasco in a long line of mishaps further underscores the risks of exploring for oil in the Arctic Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

FORBES: Why Shell Should Just Quit Its Alaska Drilling Fiasco

This part of the peninsula is 150 miles above the Arctic Circle in northwestern Russia, bordered by the Barents and White seas.

FORBES: Catch and Release

Warming Arctic seas and a marked decline in sea ice during the summer months made it likely, they concluded, that numbers would fall by one third within three generations (45 years).

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