Digger confirmed as cause of Auckland jet fuel crisis

Wednesday, 20 September 2017

Energy and Resources Minister Judith Collins and Ministry of Transport chief executive Peter Mersi update the media on the Auckland jet fuel crisis.

The unknown digger driver who damaged the pipeline that supplies fuel to Auckland must have known it happened and is probably under 'tremendous emotional strain'.

Refining New Zealand chief executive Sjoerd Post said the company had confirmed suspicions that damage to the pipeline which connects the refinery to Auckland had been caused by a digger.

The outage was detected on Thursday and since Sunday airlines have faced major fuel rationing while hundreds of trucks are delivering ground fuel into Auckland.

Post admitted the damage may have been caused as far back as 2014, or as recently as last week.

While the company did not know the identity of the driver, the person would almost certainly know what they had done.

'I actually worry about the person who did this, I think this person must be under tremendous emotional strain,' Post said.

'I actually hope that the person who did this has family or a partner who actually understands that he or she is going through this and are supporting them.'

Post said there was 'very clear signage' warning of the pipeline on a farm fence about 8 to 10 metres away from the location where it ruptured.

'We have potentially been naive in thinking people would take heed of this caution,' he said.

Refining New Zealand maintains it is on track to have the pipeline back in action between Sunday and Tuesday.

Although the fuel industry is advancing plans to deliver aviation fuel to Wynyard wharf as a back up plan, industry figures said they were increasingly confident that the timeline would be met.

Fuel companies have managed to keep supplies of ground fuels into Auckland with only minor disruption.

Almost all of the disruption of the fuel outage has been faced by airlines and thousands of customers.

On Wednesday, 39 flights were cancelled, Auckland Airport Adrian Littlewood said, bringing the total number of cancellations to 110. Littlewood said that was only about 5 per cent of the airport's ground movements.

Fuel rationing is expected to last until at least next Thursday, although Board of Airlines Representatives executive director Justin Tighe-Umbers said disruption may have peaked.

'The airlines are now meeting the 30 per cent fuel allocation and the networks are starting to stabilise in terms of delays and cancellations,' he said.

Air New Zealand, which took the extraordinary step of limiting ticket sales on some flights on Tuesday, said it had eased the restrictions and should not have to cancel further domestic flights.

Planes continue to be diverted for refuelling.

A day after Air New Zealand sent an empty 777-200 to Wellington purely to refuel, another wide-bodied Boeing, this time a 787-9 pulled up at the terminal on Tuesday.

It was one of six planes which made unscheduled stops in Wellington, the remainder then continuing to international destinations.

The Dreamliner sat not far from Singapore Airlines' 777-200, which has now been operating from Wellington for one year.

It was the first time two wide-bodied aircraft had visited Wellington Airport at the same time.