Anadarko points finger at BP for spill

Anadarko Petroleum, the US-based independent oil and gas exploration company, which is BP's partner in the polluting Gulf of Mexico oil well, is trying to distance itself from its partner, blasting the London-based oil company for wghat it called reckless decisions and actions that triggered the largest oil spill in the history of the US.

BP's fair-weather partner, which holds a 25-per cent stake in the well has, till date, not doled out a single cent to share the expenses for capping the well or for the clean-up operations.

BP, on the other hand has taken the moral high ground, and assumed complete responsibility to do whatever it takes to stop the pollution; so far it has spent over $1.6 billion on its efforts.

Texas-based Anadarko, which is trying to wriggle out of sharing any liability by trying to hold an already down BP as being solely responsible for the mess, not unlike another US oil giant, Chevron's actions in Ecuador. Anadarko knows that the only way it can escape paying its share of the clean-up and litigation costs is if it is proved that BP had operated the well in an unsafe manner.

Anadarko chairman and CEO Jim Hackett went on the offensive against BP in a statement  released yesterday: "The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions.

Frankly, we are shocked by the publicly available information that has been disclosed in recent investigations and during this week's testimony that, among other things, indicates BP operated unsafely and failed to monitor and react to several critical warning signs during the drilling of the Macondo well.''