Iraqi engineers have run into delays while repairing a sabotaged southern oil pipeline and now hope to resume partial exports on Sunday, officials said.
"We are having problems, including gas that is delaying welding," said one oil official, who asked not to be named.
"We hope to finish repairs and conduct test runs tonight if the gas problem is surmounted. Such repairs are unpredictable by nature," he said.
The same official had said on Friday that oil exports could resume on Saturday at a rate of 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) if welding finished and test runs on the 42-inch line succeeded.
Coalition Provisional Authority spokesman Dominic d'Angelo said the exports could resume on Sunday at a rate of 500,000 to 600,000 bpd if the repairs were completed.
"Pressure has to build up in the pipeline first," he said.
Iraqi South Oil Company teams are working in baking temperatures in the Faw peninsula, where guerrillas attacked the 42-inch (106.7 cm) pipeline earlier this week. A 48-inch (121.9 cm) pipeline was also hit nearer the southern city of Basra.
Repairs on the 48-inch line have not yet started.
Mike Stinson, chief oil adviser in Iraq's US-led administration, said on Friday it was hard to say when exports would resume.
"No one could dare predict exactly. They are making good progress and 700,000 bpd of exports on Saturday or Sunday is quite possible," he told Reuters.
The attacks, as well as sabotage on northern pipelines, have brought all of Iraq's oil exports to a standstill. They had been running at around 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd).
The southern pipelines feed the Basra terminal, formerly known as Mina al-Bakr, which was exporting 1.6 million bpd before the latest sabotage. The pipelines also feed Khor al-Amaya, a much smaller offshore terminal.
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