A Question of Rigs, of Rules, or of Rigging the Rules?

Upstream Profits and Taxes in US Gulf Offshore Oil and Gas
This book is an exercise in applied economics that, for the first time, brings together and combines a historical and institutional approach to the development of oil and gas activities in the US Gulf of Mexico with the statistical and analytical material put in the public domain by agencies of the US Federal or state governments.
Set in the context of the dramatic increases in the price of oil and gas which consumers all over the world have had to endure since 2000, this book gives an overview of oil and gas production activities in the US Gulf of Mexico, focusing on four key producing areas: a suprasalt province in very shallow and shallow waters; a subsalt province that extends up to the deepwater boundary (1000 feet); a shallow water deep gas province (with reservoirs found at least 15,000 feet below sea level) and, finally, a sub- and suprasalt deepwater province. It address