Jury selection began on Monday for the trial of the most senior BP executive charged in connection with 2010's fatal Deepwater Horizon oil disaster.

David Rainey, BP's former vice president for exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, will stand trial in New Orleans, charged with obstructing a congressional investigation in the weeks after the oil spill, the largest in US history.

Prosecutors allege he deliberately withheld information about how much oil was being pumped into the Gulf following the explosion at the BP well.

Rainey is the most senior of a handful of individuals facing charges over the Deepwater disaster, which claimed 11 lives. Robert Kaluza and Donald Vidrine, BP's top two supervisors on the rig, face involuntary manslaughter and other charges. BP engineer Kurt Mix still faces accusations that he deleted texts about the amount of oil flowing from the blown-out well. Mix's first trial ended in mistrial.