Iraq's reopened its main southern export pipeline on Thursday despite an uprising by an anti-US cleric that threatened the oil infrastructure.
Supplies, which have been cut to almost half because of an attack on the pipeline, are expected to resume fully by late Thursday, an official from the Southern Oil Company said.
"Pumping started at 430 pm (1230 GMT). It will take around seven hours to build pressure and for the flow to reach normal," he said on condition of anonymity.
The south accounts for all of Iraq's oil exports, which have been disrupted since saboteurs attacked the pipeline and the Mehdi Army militia of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to attack the oil infrastructure.
Privately Iraqi officials say that sabotage attacks against oil pipelines all over the country could rise even if US forces defeat Sadr and his militia in his hometown, the holy city of Najaf.
US forces surrounded Najaf's Imam Ali shrine in the centre of Najaf on Thursday and kept bombing the city.
A Mehdi army commander in mostly Shia city of Basra vowed on Wednesday to attack oil pipelines if the United States kept up its offensive on Najaf.
The instability delayed opening the main 48-inch pipeline, which can handle up to 1.5 million bpd and was repaired on Wednesday. Flows were restricted to a smaller one million bpd pipeline.
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