Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- A Japanese whaling ship that caught on fire in Antarctic waters last week may re-start its engines and resume its hunt as soon as today, the vessel's owners said.

Crew on the Nisshin Maru found damage to the engines isn't as bad as initially determined, Glenn Inwood, a spokesman for Tokyo-based Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, said today in Wellington.

``They've pumped out all the water after the fire and are checking the wiring,'' Inwood said. ``It would be ideal if they could get moving today and continue on.''

The Nisshin Maru's factory deck caught on fire on Feb. 15, raising concerns that fuel on board may leak into the Southern Ocean, causing an environmental disaster. New Zealand urged the ship's owners to move the boat as soon as possible, as it is floating 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the world's biggest Adelie penguin colony at Cape Adare on the Antarctic coast.

Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha, a company whose stakeholders consist of Japanese government organizations including the Institute of Cetacean Research, rejected a Feb. 16 offer from the environmental group Greenpeace to use its ship the Esperanza to tow the Nisshin Maru to safety.

Five other whaling ships are with the Nisshin Maru, two of them lashed to its sides to keep it from listing.

Processing Boat

The whale hunt wouldn't continue without the Nisshin Maru, Inwood said, as it is the ``processing'' boat where samples are collated and examined. If its engines start without incident today, the fleet could continue trawling the South Ocean until the middle of March, he added.

The Nisshin Maru, along with sighting and harpooning ships, set sail in November to kill as many as 935 minke whales and 10 fin whales under the government's research program. A Japanese fleet heads to the Southern Ocean at this time every year.

The largest boat in the fleet, the Oriental Bluebird, could also be used to tow the Nisshin Maru out of Antarctic waters and back to Japan, Inwood said.

``It depends on the damage and if they can get the engines up and running,'' he said, adding Greenpeace's offer was ``not required or necessary.''

Japan's government says the whaling program is needed to prove that whale populations are increasing to the extent that a return to commercial whaling, banned under the terms of the International Whaling Committee treaty, is sustainable.

``We have a huge concern for the environment, a pristine environment,'' New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark said yesterday, according to Radio New Zealand. ``We would like to see that stricken ship out of there as soon as possible.''

The ship isn't leaking fuel or oil, Inwood said, adding the New Zealand government's comments were ``not helpful.''

Crew members found the body of sailor Kazutaka Makita on Feb. 17, the Institute for Cetacean Research in Tokyo said in a statement on its Web Site. Makita went missing shortly before the fire. The 27-year-old from Kagoshima Prefecture was found on the Nisshin Maru's second deck ``close to where the fire began,'' it said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma O'Brien in Wellington at eobrien6@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 19, 2007 18:34 EST