By Tom Bergin
LONDON (Reuters) - Shares in BP and Transocean rose on Thursday as investors bet a new U.S. Presidential panel report that spread the blame for the country's worst-ever oil spill meant the firms would avoid the massive costs of a gross negligence charge.
BP's London-listed shares were up 1.6 percent at 507.6 pence at 1100 GMT (6 a.m. ET), while shares in Transocean's Swiss-listed shares were up 3.9 percent. The STOXX 600 European oil and gas sector index was up 1.2 percent, on higher oil prices.
One top 10 investor in BP said the fact that the blame for the blowout was shared with drilling contractor Transocean and well cementer Halliburton suggested the London-based oil major was less likely to face gross negligence charges.
Under U.S. law, BP faces fines of $5 billion because the spill happened on its exploration block.
However, the fine could rise above $21 billion if Europe's second-largest oil company by market value was found to have been grossly negligent in the run-up to the blast.
Peter Hitchens, oil analyst at Panmure Gordon, said comments made in the report that the management failure which caused the explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig reflected industry-wide flaws, also made BP appear less culpable.
And while the report was damning, Richard Griffith, analyst at Evolution Securities said it could also mean BP can offload some of the costs of cleaning up the spill onto its contractors.
"The report may provide grounds for BP to claw back monies from license partners and possibly Transocean and Halliburton," he said in a research note.
(Additional reporting by Raji Menon and Sarah Young; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
