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Rena report highlights New Zealand's shortcomings in coping with oil spills

THE official report into the Rena grounding in October 2011, which led to the country's worst maritime oil spill to date, has called for better resources for the Maritime New Zealand (MNZ) agency and improved communication with other agencies.

MNZ director Keith Manch told the New Zealand Herald newspaper that efforts to take Mr Murdoch's findings were already under way.

The review led by Simon Murdoch, former head of the Government Communications Security Bureau, called into question New Zealand's ability to handle major shipping casualties. The government has responded with the announcement of a NZ$2 million (US$1.6 million) upgrade for maritime response capability.

Mr Murdoch said in the document that the pressures resulting from the incident, in which the containership lost 350 tonnes of bunker, caused MNZ's response efforts to "buckle initially". Some planned response functions were shown to have had "limited resilience to begin with and were impaired in ways that might have damaged the response as a whole," he said.

"Others had to be reinforced and scaled up, and that did not always happen quickly or seamlessly."

However, long-term response scored better and plans to counter oil on shoreline and beaches were "satisfactorily executed" despite being technically impaired.

Onboard oil removal operations were very effective and reduced risk, dangerous goods risks were managed down gradually and containers and container debris removal operations on water reduced risk to beaches, sea lanes and shorelines.

Among other improvements, MNZ had reviewed international support arrangements for oil-spill response, developed additional specialist support arrangements in areas such as well controlled and hazardous and noxious substances, and undertaken new training for staff.