Texas News Hundreds Of Decommissioned Oil Rigs Are Now Thriving Marine Habitats KWBU | By Texas Standard Published April 16, 2019 at 10:58 AM CDT Twitter LinkedIn Email Listen • 4:21 NOAA Photo Library/Flickr (CC BY 2.0) Through the federal government’s Rigs to Reefs program, oil companies have converted more than 500 rigs in the Gulf of Mexico into reefs, which are popular with divers.