Sheen Up to 5km Around Rena

The grounded container vessel Rena has released oil. The sheen has remained around the wreck, at times stretching out to around 5km. The sheen stretching away from Rena has primarily been rainbow sheen, suggesting a very light distribution of oil but observation flights have identified darker patches around the wreck. 

 

Shoreline Clean-up Assessment Teams have continued to check the beaches from Pâpâmoa to Mt Maunganui, including Leisure Island and Mauâo, where little blue penguins have been released.

Clean-up operations have targeted high priority areas where wildlife releases have been planned or undertaken. Targeted areas have included Mauâo and Matakana.

 

Warm water washing at Mauâo has continued with good results, while beach clean-up teams have followed up on reports from the public of tar balls coming ashore.

 

Container removal operations have been hampered this week by bad weather, and a technical issue with the crane on the barge Smit Borneo. A total of 206 containers have now been removed from Rena.

 

There were 1,368 containers on board Rena when it ran aground and 86 containers are believed to have washed overboard on 11 October. This leaves 1,076 containers remaining on board the wreck.

Svitzer engineers are working on a modification to address the problem with the crane.

 

The condition of Rena's hull is continuing to deteriorate, with divers identifying changes to the buckling on the starboard side this week. While the motion detectors attached to the hull of the wreck do not suggest any significant movement, Rena remains in a fragile state. While container removal operations have been suspended, salvors have worked this week on attaching patches to the internal corridors of the wreck to improve buoyancy.