Salvors succeed in pumping oil from Rena

The national on-scene commander Mick Courtnell said the heightened alert arising from incoming bad weather “had proven a good test of the oil spill response team’s ability to rapidly escalate in order to meet increased risk”.

Although the ship has been expected to break up almost from the first day of the incident, there has actually been time for a substantial response and many organisations have been working against time to empty the fuel tanks and deal with the containers.

The Rena grounding has been called New Zealand’s worst marine spill, although at least 1,000 tons have been safely pumped from the stricken vessel, emptying four of Rena’s five main heavy fuel tanks. There is increasing evidence of the hull buckling and cracking at the time of writing.

Since the grounding on 5 October, the Port of Tauranga has been working with Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) to coordinate the emergency response, seconding staff, work boats, tugs, office and cargo shed space and exclusive use of the Number 5 berth and its adjacent quay for materials. Shed 22 has also been set aside to bring ashore salvaged containers.

The port used its AGM to give a public update on progress of the clean up and salvage operations, led by Svitzer Salvage BV.

“It will always be very difficult to demonstrate to the general public that adequate procedures are in place to handle low likelihood, high consequence risks such as this grounding”, said Mark Cairns, chief executive at the Port of Tauranga, reiterating why continual updates are important.