NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- BP PLC has come up empty-handed after billing its joint-venture partners, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and a unit of Mitsui Oil Exploration Co., for reimbursement of nearly $400 million in expenses in fighting the spill a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP BP, -1.18% (BP) is the joint-venture operator of the exploratory well that has become the source of the largest oil spill in U.S. history since the deadly April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Anadarko APC, +1.31% owns a 25% stake and Moex Offshore, a subsidiary of Japanese conglomerate Mitsui & Co. MITSY, -2.49% , owns 10%.

BP spokesman Mark Salt said Moex Offshore "informed us ... they are withholding payment for their share of the costs" related to the oil spill, which has polluted waters in the Gulf and fouled beaches and wetlands in several states.

"We are disappointed that another party has failed to live up to its obligations under the Macondo Operating Agreement and as a responsible party under the Oil Pollution Act," BP said. "We will continue to fulfill our obligations as operator."

A spokesman for Moex Offshore did not have a comment on the statement from BP.

BP, which earlier this week said it spent a total of $3.5 billion on cleanup and containment efforts to date, sent out a $272 million bill to Anadarko and a bill for about $111 million to Moex, according to reports.

The Moex response mirrored the reaction by Anadarko, which has lost about $10 billion in market capitalization since the April 20 explosion and subsequent leak from the Macondo well.

Last week, Anadarko said it wouldn't reimburse BP, and Chief Executive Jim Hackett blamed BP for the accident.

"The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions," Hackett said in a June 18 statement.

Hackett said that under terms of a joint operating agreement for the well, BP is responsible to its co-owners for damages caused by its gross negligence or willful misconduct.

Hackett and Naoki Ishii, president of Moex Offshore 2007 LLC, are scheduled to testify July 22 in a hearing before a Senate subcommittee on federal financial management and services, government information and international security, chaired by Sen. Tom Carper (D., Del.).