WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- New Zealand authorities said they expected several debriefing sessions from the grounding of an oil-laden cargo ship in order to be better prepared.
As much as 2,000 barrels of oil leaked from the cargo ship Rena after it struck a reef in the Bay of Plenty last month. There is a noticeable crack on the ship's starboard side and salvage teams with Maritime New Zealand had struggled to get oil out of a submerged fuel tank during high seas.
MNZ said early this week salvage teams had finally stopped pumping operations from the submerged starboard tank after their pumps started extracting seawater instead of oil from the ship. Authorities had pumped seawater into the tank to get the last of the oil to rise to the surface.
Dallas Bradley, a regional on-scene commander for MNZ, said "there are bound to be debriefs on debriefs on this event" so authorities can take a lessons-learned approach to grounded vessels off the New Zealand coast.
Authorities had encountered setbacks because high seas and poor weather interrupted earlier oil-extraction methods.
MNZ has moved to extracting the last of the cargo containers from the vessel. Reefs around New Zealand have left many ships grounded. A 48-ton steel fishing trawler was reported stranded off the coast Wednesday morning.
