Andrew Little is open to not re-entering Pike River mine and says if no progress has been made by Christmas, officials will question if that is the right move.

On Thursday, Little, the Minister Responsible for Pike River re-entry, announced that the operation planned for Friday had been delayed due to elevated oxygen levels at the far end of the drift.

The decision to suspend operations was disappointing for the local West Coast community and families of the 29 men killed in the 2010 explosion, but they also understood health and safety had to be put first.

While the previous Government said the mine wasn't safe enough to re-enter, the current Government says experts believe it is possible to get men back into the mine to look for evidence about what caused the explosion.

But Little told The AM Show on Friday that if problems continue to arise and nothing can be done to make the re-entry safe, they may have to call quits on the operation.

"There will come a point where we say 'we have fulfilled our commitment to do everything possible and everything conceivable and safely, but we can't get there or we can't go any further'," he said.

"We are making judgement calls all the time and certainly by Christmas, we expect, we've planned for, to have made considerable progress by that time. So if we haven't, then yeah, these questions definitely arise."