U.S. Department of the Interior announces winners of oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico at a meeting in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. People involved in the oil and gas industry, members of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and a small group of Occupy Wall Street protesters, attended a meeting where the highest bidders for different leases in the Gulf of Mexico were read out loud by the government . The leases awarded to oil companies in for land in the Gulf of Mexico are the first to be awarded since the BP Gulf oil spill in 2010. announces