BP has asked the US Supreme Court to step in after federal courts in New Orleans lifted an injunction blocking the payment of business claims for economic losses under the settlement that the UK oil company agreed for victims of the spill in 2012.

The company on Wednesday filed a request for the Supreme Court to block disputed compensation awards related to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster, warning that it faced “staggering” costs “far exceeding the actual injury caused by the spill” if payments were allowed to go ahead.

BP, which now must resume making compensation payments while it awaits a response to its petition, argued that if the Supreme Court did not overrule the lower courts and support the injunction, the company stood to lose “hundreds of millions” of dollars that would be “irretrievably scattered to claimants that suffered no injury traceable to BP’s conduct”.