Transocean (a US company registered in Switzerland) owned and ran the rig and also the failed blow out preventer (manufactured by Cameron International of Houston)
BP owns 65% of the lease of Mississippi Canyon Block252, in partnership with Japanese company MOEX (10%) and US company Anardarko of Houston (25%)
There is also another US company involved with the operation – Halliburton – contracted to cement the well head
The BP title was adopted in 1998 when British Petroleum merged with US oil giant Amoco so,I suppose, it could be called BP Amoco.
BP’s board has 12 directors, 6 British, 6 American. 23000 of it’s employees are American, 10000 British and, interestingly enough, shareholdings are more or less evenly split between Americans and Brits (approx 40% each) so US investors and US pensions will be hit as hard as Brits over this.
Above all nobody yet knows what actually caused the April 20th explosion so, until we do, any blame game must, by default, remain purely speculative.
