The completion date for the North Otago Irrigation Company's (NOIC) $57 million expansion have again been revised.
Company chief executive Robyn Wells said farmers were informed at a meeting of shareholders last week that the completion dates for the 114km expansion provided in December by McConnell Dowell were likely two weeks out.
However, she said the company now had confidence its contractor's works programme was on track.
"We have confidence in the team that they have - they have a new project manager - and we are confident that they are approaching the remedial work well,'' Mrs Wells said.
"Of course, we're disappointed that we are here, having to do this, but they are doing the work.''
The expansion project, which began in the spring of last year, was initially expected to deliver water to farms by September 1 last year, yet by May, farmers heard of a Christmas 2016 delivery date.
Then faults were found in mechanical couplers and components coupled to air valves used in the work during pipeline testing on November 4, and McConnell Dowell's New Zealand and Pacific business managing director Roger McRae came to the region and presented a new timeline for expected completion of the project, for which NOIC received a $17 million loan from the Waitaki District Council.
Farmers at the end of the line - at Herbert, Maheno and All Day Bay - were not to expect water before March 27, and that date was now expected to be April 10, Mrs Wells said yesterday.
She had spoken to Mr McRae last week and was again assured "they will do whatever it takes, and whatever it costs, to get this fixed and commissioned''.
In December, she warned shareholders not to rely on McConnell Dowell's updated works programme for a completion date for the project and said yesterday now that crews had begun the work, NOIC had more confidence in the scheduled completion date.
"What they're finding is - they've had to go in and dig down to the couplers - and when they've gone in, more of them had required repairs than they anticipated and it's taking a bit longer in some places than they thought,'' she said.
