The company behind the controversial Dakota Access crude oil pipeline has said it will seek to complete the project even if protests against its construction continue.

"This is not a peaceful protest," Kelcy Warren, the chief executive of Energy Transfer Partners, told PBS.

"If they want to stick around and continue to do what they're doing, great, but we're building the pipeline."

Dakota Access, halted by the federal government in September after protests, has drawn opposition from the Native American Standing Rock Sioux tribe and environmentalists who say it could pollute water supplies and destroy sacred historic tribal sites.

Demonstrators fanned out across North America on Tuesday to demand that the US Government either halts or reroutes the pipeline, while Energy Transfer asked a federal court for permission to complete it.

Energy Transfer has said the pipeline would be a more efficient and safer way to transport oil from the Bakken shale of North Dakota to the Midwest and onto the US Gulf Coast.

Earlier this month, President Barack Obama gave the protest movements hope with an announcement that government officials were examining ways to reroute the pipeline.

Reuters