BP seeks recovery of all Gulf spill costs from Halliburton

BP Plc have asked its contractor Halliburton Co to pay for all costs and damages that arose from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The claims were made in a filing by BP's lawyer Don Haycraft in a US Federal court. BP and Halliburton are currently undergoing a legal battle with a trial expected this year to settle damages claims.

BP claim they have paid more than $21 billion in cleanup costs and economic damages to individuals, businesses and governments harmed by the spill. BP reserved more than $40 billion to cover costs related to the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Don Haycraft, BP's lead trial attorney, said in a filing yesterday in federal court in New Orleans that the oil company seeks 'the amount of costs and expenses incurred by BP to clean up and remediate the oil spill, the lost profits from and/or diminution in value of the Macondo prospect, and all other costs and damages incurred by BP related to the Deepwater Horizon incident and resulting oil spill'.

BP and Halliburton accuse each other's employees of making critical mistakes that caused the blowout of the London-based oil company's well off the Louisiana coast in 2010. The explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore spill in U.S. history.

BP shares rose as much as 2.1 percent in London trading and was 1.6 percent higher at 467.95 pence as of 8:15 a.m.

BP, which owned the Macondo lease, and Halliburton, which provided well-completion services for the project, jointly face more than 500 lawsuits by coastal property owners, businesses and governments claiming billions of dollars in damages from the drifting oil. The lawsuits have been combined for pretrial processing in federal court in New Orleans, where a judge is scheduled to begin a trial in February to determine liability for the spill.

Halliburton, based in Houston, has said in court papers that its cementing-services contract requires BP to indemnify it from all damage claims, even if its employees were found to have shared blame for the disaster.

BP, rejecting that argument, accused Halliburton in yesterday's filing of gross negligence. That level of misconduct 'will suffice to eliminate any indemnity obligation for damages of any kind,' Haycraft said in the filing.

Halliburton has said in court filings that the actions of BP's employees caused the explosion on the rig.

Beverly Stafford, a spokeswoman for the company, said 'Halliburton believes it is fully indemnified by BP against any loss resulting from the Macondo incident and any penalties arising from the violations'.