There is some debate but I think and strongly believe at the end of the day an Anadarko's claim would legally hold up as an administrative claim. The article agrees in its conclusion.
The fact that you can even go after the previous owner of the well to clean up your mess is astounding. Set the legal arguments aside - can you imagine selling your house to someone and 6 years later the guy defaults on his mortgage and the court comes back to you and says since you were the previous owner of the home you have to make it right...plus you have no legal recourse to recoup the money if this loser has a financial windfall. Would you ever sell another house??!!! Oh hell no!
Aside from the ATP case we're going to see allot more of this decommissioning of abandoned off-shore oil wells become a HUGE HUGE issue.
I find it hard to believe it costs in the hundreds of Millions of dollars to decommission a well but apparently it does. And if that's the case what would stop other financially unstable oil companies from filing BK just to avoid their decommissioning obligations? Nothing...especially if they know they can stick it to the guy they got the well from! This makes for bad law.
I think the emergence of domestic land-based shale oil is a negative game-changer for GoM offshore oil companies.
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