New Zealand: One Pipeline Rupture Later…

September 18th, 2017

Update: New Zealand Military Deploying for Fuel Transportation

Update: Air New Zealand Restricting Ticket Sales, Cargo Reduced

New Zealand is a funny place. It sort of pretends to be a modern, first world sort of place, when in actuality, it’s a hair’s width away from infrastructure collapse at all times.

Combine the she’ll-be-‘right philosophy with spending the least amount of money possible on critical infrastructure. Then, introduce a hickup or two.

*ouch*

International data communications infrastructure is potentially in much worse danger than the whole Marsden Point situation—and I’ve just deleted several paragraphs about that. It’s just too soft of a target, and the implications are too horrifying to consider. I just hope that someone in the Ministry of Defense isn’t asleep on these issues. I do see more razor wire and security cameras around there, which is a good sign. But what good is razor wire if the gates are left open? And why isn’t there any razor wire out front?

Anyway…

Via: Otago Daily Times:

The Government has offered to help oil companies struggling with an aviation fuel crisis that threatens to disrupt air travel out of Auckland for the next “10 days to two weeks”.

The problem arose after the pipeline which carries the jet fuel from the Marsden Point refinery was cut, by a digger lifting swamp kauri on a farm at Ruakaka, near Whangarei, the New Zealand Herald reports.

Prime Minister Bill English told reporters on the campaign trail in Botany today that he had instructed ministers to “offer all assistance that the Government can” to restore aviation fuel supplies.

Auckland Airport spokesman Simon Lambourne said 23 flights had been cancelled in the past 24 hours.

NZ Refining spokesman Greg McNeill said the pipeline was likely to be shut down for at least several days, and two engineers were flying in from Canada tomorrow.

Mobil Oil spokesman Rob Fitzgerald said the refining company had told oil companies that it would take “between 10 and 14 days” to restore the fuel supply.

Petrol and diesel can be trucked into Auckland by tanker, but the airport depends entirely on the pipeline and is now running out of stored supplies of aviation fuel.

Andrew McNaught of Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, representing the customers of the refinery, said the industry was working proactively to minimise the impact of the pipeline outage.

He said the issue was particularly focused on Auckland Airport as it was exclusively supplied with jet fuel by the pipeline.

McNaught said this was the first time that the refinery to Auckland pipeline had experienced a fault.

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