While most people look at the Gulf of Mexico and see seafood and beaches, oil executives see the Gulf differently. They see a giant grid containing thousands of squares of possibility, each potentially yielding billions of dollars.
You see this:
(photo credit: Dmitriy Pritykin)
They see this, a grid of the entire gulf representing regions available for lease (click to enlarge):
(source)
This is a close up off the Louisiana coast (green lines and regions are oil pipelines and fields, the pink are the same for gas):
(source)
There are 6,652 leased squares, amounting to 22 percent of the lease-able Gulf (click to enlarge) and approximately 4,000 oil production platforms in the Gulf:
(source)
I offer this only as an illustration of the degree to which the Gulf has been commodified. The Gulf is big, big, big business:
(source)
