British energy giant BP is prepared for a multi-billion-dollar US legal case into the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill to last until 2014, its chief executive told the Sunday Telegraph.

The London-listed company heads to a US court on Monday in an attempt to determine how much it owes for the oil spill catastrophe and how much it can shift to subcontractors.

“We have to remember we are a business that invests in decade-long cycles,” BP chief executive Bob Dudley told the weekly newspaper.

“Hopefully we will reach some agreements and we will be able to reduce the uncertainty and move forward.

“But the appeals process has various different branches it could go down in terms of time, so it could be a lot longer than that (2014).”