Up to 1,000 barrels of crude leaked into the Atlantic on Nov. 21 after equipment that separates water from the oil malfunctioned, the company said.

Now, Petro-Canada and its partners are awaiting approval from the Canada-Newfoundland Offshore Petroleum Board to resume production at the 160,000-barrel-a-day project.

"We are still waiting to hear back from them as to their next steps in their decision process," Downton said. "We've had, obviously, some discussions with them over the weekend, but we don't have any word on the timing for their decision at this point."

A board spokeswoman said she could not speculate how long the regulator will take before lifting the suspension.

"It won't be lifted until the chief conservation officer is comfortable operations can resume safely," C-NOPB's Simone Keough said.

The board said in a statement on Sunday that wildlife monitoring and water sampling were continuing, but oil recovery efforts were being reduced after just 6 litres (1.5 US gallons) of crude was seen on the water the day before.

A few days after the incident, the oil had formed patches of slick covering about 57 square km (22 square miles).

Petro-Canada said last week it had recovered four seabirds that had been coated with oil from the spill, but the regulator pointed out that the Canadian Wildlife Service estimated that as many as 10,000 could ultimately be affected.

Petro-Canada's partners in Terra Nova, which is located 350 km (217 miles) southeast of Newfoundland, are Exxon Mobil Corp. , Husky Energy Inc., Norsk Hydro, Murphy Oil Corp., Mosbacher Operating Co. and ChevronTexaco Corp.

Some authorities have called it the worst oil spill in the Grand Banks region, where oil is also produced at the massive Hibernia platform, the country's largest offshore development.