It will take around 10 days to resume oil exports from Libya's eastern port of Hariga as workers repair and test a damaged pipeline linking it with the Sarir oilfield, officials said on Sunday.

Hariga's closure has reduced Libya's exports to around 80,000 barrels a day from two offshore oil fields, a fraction of the up to 1.3 million barrels it exported daily prior to the ousting of leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Most Libyan oilfields have stopped working due to a violent power struggle between armed factions aligned to two governments and parliaments vying for control of the country.

The pipeline was damaged by a blast a week ago. "The repair will last 10 days," one oil official said, asking not to be identified.

A second, Omran Al-Zwie, spokesman for the port and oil field operator Arabian Gulf Oil Co (AGOCO), told Reuters that the pipeline would require testing.

"We have started a test pumping to assess the maintenance. Most likely the final result of the test will be clearer tomorrow."

No additional information was immediately available on the status of the pipeline.

Oil insiders said once maintenance has been completed, it would take some days build up pressure and reach back the old production levels. Hariga used to export 120,000 bpd.

There have been some exports from Hariga since the blast closed the pipeline using oil in storage at the port but the oil official said the 500,000 barrels remaining there would be used for domestic refinery use.

Hariga is also home to a 20,000 bpd refinery. A second refinery in Zawiya west of Tripoli, which has a capacity of 120,000 bpd, is mainly fed from Brega port, the last onshore port still functioning.

Four years after a Nato-backed war toppled Gaddafi, Western governments fear Libya is sliding deeper into armed conflict.

The worsening situation, including the rise of a group linked to Islamic State militants that beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians, has prompted international energy firms to withdraw staff from the country. - Reuters