Dodgy bookkeeping by Arthur Andersen played a lead in role in the collapse of US energy trader Enron last year, which at the time was the biggest bankruptcy in US corporate history.

Andersen was also the auditor for American long-distance telecommunications giant Worldcom, who revealed last week it disguised billions in losses as "profit", thereby sending the markets into a downward spiral.

An AlintaGas spokesman said the decision to dump Andersen followed a board review in the wake of Andersen being subsumed by Ernst & Young.

Another factor being considered was that Kansas-based energy distributor Aquila - the renamed Utilicorp - which controls the cornerstone stake in AlintaGas, has KPMG as its auditor.