The trial to decide who should pay for the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been delayed by a week, to allow BP Plc to try to cut a deal with tens of thousands of businesses and individuals affected by the disaster.

Reuters reported on Monday that less than 24 hours before the case was set to start in a New Orleans federal court, United States District Judge, Carl Barbier, pushed back the date to March  5 from February 27.

The delay allows further talks between BP and the Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee, which  represents condominium owners, fishermen, hoteliers, restaurateurs and others who say their livelihoods were damaged by the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and subsequent oil spill

Eleven people were killed, and 4.9 million barrels of oil spewed from the mile-deep Macondo oil well, in by far the worst offshore US oil spill.

“BP and the PSC are working to reach agreement to fairly compensate people and businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon accident and oil spill,” BP said in a statement.

The London-based oil company said there was no assurance that the talks would lead to a settlement.

Bloomberg news agency reported on Monday that BP and the plaintiffs were discussing a $14bn settlement that was nearing completion. It cited three people familiar with the talks.

A settlement between BP and the businesses would remove a significant portion of the complex litigation, the trial of which was expected to take nearly a year.

It could also be a key step toward reaching a global settlement with its drilling partners, and with federal and state governments.

Much work would remain. The US government has sued BP and others for violating the Clean Water Act and other laws, which could result in fines totaling tens of billions of dollars. Gulf  states are also seeking compensation for their losses. BP is also suing and being sued by its drilling partners.

“Before today, I had almost given up on the possibility of a global settlement before a trial  began,” a professor at Tulane University Law School and specialist in complex litigation, Mr. Edward Sherman, said. “Now, with an extra week, it seems to improve the chances.”

Barbier, meanwhile, has kept the highly complex case moving forward, and had not changed the trial date since it was first set more than a year ago.

“Judge Barbier would not have delayed (the) trial unless (a) settlement was within reach,” a University of Michigan law professor and former chief of the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section, Mr. David Uhlmann, said in an email.

In an order dated Sunday, Barbier said the delay made sense “for reasons of judicial efficiency and to allow the parties to make further progress in their settlement discussions.” He did not specify which parties he was referring to.

Apart from BP, which owned 65 per cent of the Macondo well, the main corporate defendants are Vernier, Switzerland-based Transocean Limited, which owned the Deepwater Horizon rig, and Houston-based Halliburton Company, which provided cementing services for the well. They are also suing each other. Several other companies are also involved in the trial.

A BP spokeswoman declined to comment further on the talks.