Crude oil (petroleum) is a highly complex mixture of organic compounds of which some 1.3 million litres enters the environment each year. More then anything else, the numerous oil‐shipping disasters, such as of the Exxon Valdez (1989), the Erika (1999) and the Prestige (2003), have captured the public attention to this environmental problem (Fig. 1). However, these accidents account for only a small part of the annual global release of crude oil, as most enters the environment from deliberate discharge and processing sites. Around three million tons of oil enters the sea each year, of which about 20% originates from oil‐pumping operations, transport and refining activities and 25% from non‐tanker shipping and natural seepages. More than half (55%) originates from illegal activities that include the dumping of ballast water and oil residues as well as accidents (Golyshin et al., 2003). Hydrocarbons are also produced continuously by living cells as natural oils and fats (de Lorenzo, 2006). The observation that the oceans are not covered with an oily layer is a testimony to the activity of the hydrocarbon‐degrading microorganisms (Head et al., 2006). Several bacteria are even known to feed exclusively on hydrocarbons (Yakimov et al., 2007). For these (facultative) hydrocarbon degraders the occasional supertanker oil spill forms an occasional carbon banquet. They play an important role in the clean‐up after an oil spill and form the biological basis for the natural oil‐degrading capacity of the ecosystem. Studies have focused on identifying and characterizing these oil‐eating microbes, as well as how they cope with the oil/water interface, and how to improve this capacity. Here we highlight some of the recent genomics advances in this field.