Oil and energy company BP Plc is on trial to determine the extent of its culpability in a blowout at its Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico that led to a massive oil spill in 2010 causing damages worth billions of dollars.

BP’s head of drilling, Jonathan Sprague’s testimony is contained in a batch of more than 100 depositions that have been submitted by the defence to the federal judge presiding over the trial.

During his pre-trial deposition, Sprague said he recognized the risks associated with deep-water wells but thought they could be eliminated, an Associated Press report said.

At deposition, when he was asked if he believed that he had been engaged in a `high risk’ operation, Sprague replied, “At the time, I did not believe it to be high risk.”

He said that it was not true that the risk to the rig was not properly analysed during the five days before the blowout occurred.

“I think at the time the individuals involved, which included BP, service companies and contractor personnel believed that they understood all the risk,” he said.

While Sprague is not expected to depose again, all the depositions made so far will be submitted in evidence for the U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier to weigh if he ultimately decides how much more money BP and the other companies involved in the Macondo drilling project owe for their roles in the disaster.

This fact came out in a testimony by a BP executive on Thursday.

Mark Bly, who was BP’s global head of safety, had led the investigation and he said that his team did not have sufficient information to conduct a `systematic evaluation’ of what caused the blowout since they did not get the required cooperation from rig owner Transocean or the other companies working on the project.

According to a report by the Associated Press a report by Bly’s team in September 2010 focused on equipment failures and mistakes that rig workers made before the blowout triggered an explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the nation’s worst offshore oil spill.

By, while testifying in court, said that BP followed a policy of identifying systemic failures within the management system in case of accident investigations. However in this particular he and the then CEO Tony Hayward had decided to make an exception and did not attempt a dapper probe.

“We’re tasked with getting to the answer as quickly as we could, and trying to get to a position where we felt we could make good recommendations,” he said.

“Having done that, we did have the option to try to go further, but at that point in time, given the limitation that we’ve touched on, it would have been very, very difficult to do that.”

The British oil company, BP, revealed that it has decided to pay $4.5 billion in penalties and fines and apologize to 14 criminal charges related to the explosion that took place two years ago. Eleven people were killed due to the explosion and it caused a huge oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Justice Department registered criminal charges on 3 employees of BP who are connected with the disaster. Eric H. Holder Jr., Attorney General, at a news conference to declare the settlement, stated that it was exceptional when considering both the sums of money and the fact that the company as well as employees are criminally charged.

The government said that the explosion was due to BP’s negligence in covering an exploratory well that sank the Deepwater Horizon drill rig and unleashed a gusher of oil that coated all the beaches across the Gulf coast.

The settlement drives out one dark mark over the company since the explosion. The company might owe pollution fine of $21 billion under the Clean Water Act if it proved that the company has been grossly careless. BP and the government vowed to dynamically challenge that issue at a trail that will begin in February 2013.

In the deal with the Justice Department, BP will pay a total of $4 billion in penalties for a period of 5 years. The penalties include $1.256 billion in criminal fines, 350 million to the National Academy of Sciences, and $2.394 billion to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. The criminal fine posed on the company is one of the highest imposed fines by the United States.

The company also approved to pay $525 million for settling the civil charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission because of misleading investors regarding the oil flow rate from the well.

Additionally, the company will have four years of government monitoring of its ethics and safety practices.

The government charged BP officers, Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza who were throughout the drilling rig. Government argued that the officers were careless in monitoring tests to close the well. Prosecutors also charged BP’s former vice president, David Rainey for surveying in the Gulf of Mexico and making fake statements for knowing how much the oil spilling from the well was.

The Attorney General, Mr. Holder said that the investigation by the government is still under process and it might file other criminal charges.