LONDON, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Oil giant BP has lost its attempt to shift over $15 billion of costs related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill onto contractor Transocean , increasing the possibility BP may have to foot the entire $42 billion clean up bill.

A U.S. federal judge on Thursday said BP must uphold a clause in its contract with Transocean Ltd that would shield the Swiss-based driller from compensatory damage claims related to the 2010 disaster.

That means London-based BP may have to shoulder alone compensation claims brought by the likes of fishermen and hoteliers whose livelihoods were affected by largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

However, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier left open the possibility that Transocean might still have to pay all or part of any punitive damages and civil penalties imposed by the U.S. government under the federal Clean Water Act.

Barbier, who oversees multistate litigation over the spill, ruled that BP need not indemnify Transocean for these.

BP has estimated civil fines of around $3.5 billion related to the spill, although maximum possible fines could top $20 billion if gross negligence was established on the part of BP or its contractors.

BP has made no provision for punitive damages because it says there is no legal basis for them. Barbier has limited the cases in which claims for punitive damages can be brought.

LONDON, Jan 23 (Reuters) – BP Plc, the British government and the European Union lobbied U.S. lawmakers to have a BP-led project exempted from proposed new U.S. sanctions which seek to stop Western companies doing business with Iran, sources close to the matter said.

U.S. lawmakers are mulling new sanctions to constrict the funding that Western nations suspect Iran is using to develop nuclear weapons.

One congressional aide said senators were discussing provisions that could bar companies like BP from working with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

NIOC’s subsidiary, Naftiran Intertrade Co, owns a 10 percent stake in the Shah Deniz project which is co-led by BP and Norway’s Statoil and which is estimated to contain 1.2 trillion cubic metres of gas.

Production at the deposit began in 2006, while second phase production — which is expected to help reduce Europe’s reliance on Russia for its gas supplies — is expected to begin by late 2016 or early 2017.

“The EU has requested that the United States exempt Shah Deniz from U.S. sanctions on the grounds that the project is important to EU energy security,” a British government source said.

BP acknowledged discussing the matter with lawmakers.

LONDON, Jan 20 – (Reuters) – Oil industry engineering and construction provider Kentz named a new chief executive on Friday and told investors 2011 results would be slightly ahead of market expectations.

The company said chief operating officer Christian Brown would replace Chief Executive Hugh O’Donnell as of Feb. 1, who grew the group from a small Irish-based group to a $830 million international player over the past 12 years.

Brown joined Kentz last year, after a 20 year career with KBR and Foster Wheeler, as part of a rash of high level appointments. Emphasising the group’s continued overseas growth ambitions, Brown will be based in Houston.

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said the leadership changes also suggested the company would “increasingly look for bolt-on acquisitions going forward”.

The company’s order backlog of $2.4 billion at the end of 2011 was up 50 percent from December 2010, aided by new awards, it said.

Kentz expects development to continue in Russia, Australia and Canada.

Analysts at Evolution Securities raised the company’s shares to “buy” from hold.

LONDON (Reuters) – BP (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) is likely to agree to pay the U.S. Department of Justice $20-$25 billion to settle all charges around the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, according to a leading analyst, a prediction that is at least twice what the company has set aside.

Martijn Rats, head of European oil research at Morgan Stanley, said he saw a 70-80 percent chance that the two sides would agree a deal on civil and criminal charges surrounding the 2010 disaster sometime between BP’s full year results on February 7, and the scheduled start of legal hearings in New Orleans on February 27.

BP sources have told Reuters that talks are ongoing with the Department of Justice about a possible settlement and that the London-based company’s board has shifted to weekly meetings to discuss progress.

Chief Executive Bob Dudley has said BP would like to settle, although not at any price. When asked about the matter by reporters on Wednesday, he declined to make any comment, saying it was a sensitive time to be discussing it.

When contacted by Reuters, BP had no comment to make over the likelihood or size of a settlement of the charges surrounding the blast on the Deepwater Horizon and subsequent spill.

BP senses the U.S. administration would like to settle the matter, not least because it is a U.S. presidential election year, the sources said but any outcome is still seen as uncertain.

The estimated level of settlement in the Morgan Stanley note – the most detailed analysis Reuters has seen on the potential cost of the spill – is much higher than other analysts have predicted, and around double the amount BP has taken a provision for.

LONDON (Reuters) – Oil giant BP will likely agree to pay the U.S. Department of Justice $20-$25 billion next month to settle all civil and criminal charges around the Deepwater Horizon rig blast and Gulf of Mexico oil spill, a leading industry analyst predicted on Thursday.

Martijn Rats, head of European oil research at Morgan Stanley said in a research note that he saw a 70-80 percent chance that the two sides would agree a deal sometime between BP’s full year results on February 7, and the scheduled start of legal hearings in New Orleans on February 27.

BP sources have told Reuters that talks are ongoing with the Department of Justice about a possible settlement and that the London-based company’s board has shifted to weekly meetings to discuss progress.

Chief Executive Bob Dudley has previously said BP would like to settle, although not at any price. When asked about the matter by reporters on Wednesday, he declined to make any comment, saying it was a sensitive time to be discussing it.

When contacted by Reuters, BP had no comment to make over the likelihood or size of a settlement.

BP senses the U.S. administration would like to settle the matter, not least because it is a U.S. presidential election year, the sources said but any outcome is still seen as uncertain.

The estimated level of settlement in the Morgan Stanley note – the most detailed analysis Reuters has seen on the potential cost of the spill – is much higher than other analysts have predicted, and around double the amount BP has taken a provision for.

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) is enlisting the help of expert independent explorer Tullow Oil Plc (TLW.L: Quote, Profile, Research) to find major new oil fields in the Atlantic in a nod to the poor record of big oil companies in striking gushers.

Tullow said on Wednesday the partnership would seek “transformational” discoveries in “underexplored frontier basins”.

Weaker than expected production guidance from Tullow of between 78,000 and 86,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) for 2012 pushed its shares 4.6 percent lower to 1,388 pence at 3:21 p.m.

Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch said analysts’ consensus had been for output of 91,000 boepd, while Citigroup said it had forecast 96,000 boepd.

London-based BP Plc (BP.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and France’s Total SA (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) are among other top-tier players which have pledged to boost exploration spend as high oil prices raise profit prospects for complex fields previously seen as not worth developing.

The collapse of oil prices to $10 barrel in the 1990s killed the appetite of industry leaders like Shell and Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) to explore in frontier areas. They focused instead on less risky, but less lucrative, investments, such as developing large, known finds.

As a result, in the past decade and a half, independent explorers have led the way in opening up new multibillion-barrel oil provinces in Africa and South America.

LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell is teaming up with independent explorer Tullow Oil to explore for oil in the Atlantic, in a sign the biggest oil companies accept dramatic measures are needed to turn around their weak record on finding oil.

Tullow said on Wednesday the planned partnership would focus on making “transformational” discoveries in “underexplored frontier basins”.

In the past decade and a half, independent explorers have led the way in opening up new multibillion barrel oil provinces in Africa and South America.

The collapse of oil prices to $10 barrel in the 1990s killed the appetite of industry leaders like Shell and Exxon Mobil for exploration in frontier areas. Instead they focused on less risky, but less lucrative investments, such as developing large, known finds.

The oil giants are now increasing their exploration budgets but analysts doubt they can quickly turn around their reliance on acquisitions of oil fields or smaller producers to replace the oil and gas they pump each year.

Shell’s plan to tie up with Tullow could provide a shortcut to its effort to boost discoveries, by tapping into Tullow’s expertise and a culture that encourages exploration risk-taking.

The venture builds on Shell’s entry into Tullow’s exploration licence in French Guiana in 2009, where the partners announced a significant discovery last year.

LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Dublin-based San Leon Energy said on Tuesday it was inviting bids for a stake in its Albanian exploration licence, which it said could hold over a billion barrels of oil, after receiving a number of unsolicited bids.

The company said in a statement it had opened a data room for prospective bidders and was in talks with “several large E&P companies”.

San Leon’s London-listed shares traded up 12 percent at 11.33 pence at 0852 GMT.

The group did not say how much it expected to raise but such deals are usually cut on the basis that the purchaser agrees to cover all or part of the seller’s share of field exploration and development costs.

From the early 1990s, a number of international oil companies including Chevron, Occidental, ENI and Royal Dutch Shell explored in Albania but with disappointing results.

In recent years a number of small explorers including PetroManas and Stream Oil & Gas have returned to the country and taken up the drilling effort.

The companies have cited multi-billion barrel potential reserves.

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Rockhopper Exploration expects to find a partner to invest in its politically sensitive oil discovery offshore the Falkland Islands within three months and might sell a majority stake in the $2 billion project.

Rockhopper executives told a conference last week that seven or eight companies were interested in bidding, according to investment bank Morgan Stanley.

A research note from the bank, which hosted the conference, also said the UK-based company could give up its lead role in the Sea Lion field it believes could have 1.3 billion barrels of oil in place.

“Rockhopper would be willing to relinquish operatorship, if the farm-down interest was high enough,” said the note.

The executives told the conference Rockhopper was giving would-be bidders access to its data because it needs money and expertise to fund the development in an area that is the subject of a territorial dispute between Britain and Argentina.

Mark Wilson, oil analyst at investment bank Macquarie, which also hosted an investor conference at which Rockhopper presented last week, said in a research note he expected the company to sell a 50 percent stake in its interests in return for the partner bearing all the cost of developing the project.

This limits the list of potential acquirers to well-funded companies, ideally with strong cash flows from production.

LONDON, Jan 13 (Reuters) – UK oil explorer Cairn Energy is talks about the possible sale of a stake in its Greenland exploration interests, according to an analyst note.

Cairn’s exploration boss Mike Watts told an industry conference organised by investment bank Macquarie on Monday about the talks, according to a research note published by the bank on Thursday.

Cairn shares were up 1.4 percent at 1307 GMT, outperforming a flat STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index.

A spokeswoman for Cairn declined to comment on the note but said the company previously announced that it planned to seek a partner in the Greenland blocks.

Macquarie said it saw a sale of a stake in the blocks as more likely to happen in the second half of the year, after Cairn had completed analysis of seismic data which it hopes will show encouraging signs of oil deposits.

Cairn’s $1.2 billion Greenland drilling campaign has so far failed to generate a single oil find – much to the pleasure of green groups who believe drilling in the pristine Arctic region poses too much risk to the environment.

However, the failure has been a disappointment to big oil groups like Exxon Mobil which have also secured exploration rights in Greenland, in the hope of opening up a major new oil production province.