BP, Britain's biggest oil company, will this morning restore its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska to full capacity following a partial seven-day shutdown triggered by a small leak.

The company said last weekend that it had reduced output from the field - which normally totals around 400,000 barrels a day - by around 10,000 barrels after a gallon of oil leaked from one of its pipes. However, yesterday it announced that the problem had been resolved and that supply would be restored today. While the leak was tiny and posed no threat to Alaskan wildlife, the company is hugely sensitive about the oil field, which was at the centre of an environmental scandal last year.

In addition to damaging political fall-out from the scandal, BP executives are still waiting for US regulators to decide on what sanctions the company should face after a spill of 200,000 gallons at Prudhoe Bay. The company subsequently announced it would spend £225m on a programme of maintenance in Alaska.

Last autumn's spill in Prudhoe Bay prompted a US congressional inquiry and BP was forced to admit that pressures on its budget had played a role in maintenance failures in Alaska. The scandal, which came shortly after a disastrous explosion at BP's Texas City oil refinery, forced the closure of half the field for several months, resulting in a sharp fall in BP's global oil production.

However, the company now insists it is on top of maintenance issues in Alaska and said its swift response to the latest leak, despite its tiny size, proved it had put effective controls in place.

A spokesman for BP said: "We closed down production on just a single well last weekend and we said then that it would take seven to 10 days for the repairs to be made, so we have completed them as quickly as expected."