By Gurbir Singh, Hamilton (New Zealand)
Aviation fuel shortage due to an oil pipeline burst last Thursday, has led to dozens of flight cancellations and disruptions for the sixth day in a row at New Zealand’s busiest Auckland Airport.
Thousands of international and domestic flight passengers are stranded and face more days of cancelled flights as the repair work continues. Normal fuel supply could be restored only by mid-next week.
The 170km pipeline, which is Auckland Airport’s only source of fuel supply from the oil refinery at Marsden Point in Whangarei to tanks in Wiri, south Auckland, was closed after a leak was discovered last Thursday.
Up to 80,000 litres of jet fuel, or two tanker loads, was spilled from the pipeline at Ruakaka, about 130km north of Auckland.
Investigations have started to find out the cause, but the pipeline was apparently damaged by a digger months earlier.
New Zealand Refining, which owns the pipeline, expects the ruptured pipeline to be operational by Sept. 26. After that, however, it will take an additional 30 hours before the fuel will be ready for use and for it to reach the airport.
According to Auckland Airport spokesperson, 36 flights have been cancelled today, 23 were domestic and 13 were international heading to Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Vietnam, Fiji and Melbourne and operated by Air New Zealand, Qantas and Singapore Airlines.
Yesterday, 28 flights in and out of Auckland Airport were disrupted.
At least 9000 Air New Zealand customers alone are reported to have been affected by this fuel crisis. The national carrier, Air New Zealand has also started restricting ticket sales, including stopping sales on international services.
Government employees have been urged not to take non-essential air travel.
Mobil Oil, BP and Z Energy have asked airlines to reduce their fuel consumption to 30 per cent of their normal level.
Some outbound long-haul flights to and from Asia and North America were having to refuel at Pacific or Australian airports. Other airlines were loading extra fuel on inbound flights.
NZ Defence Force (NZDF) is helping move diesel fuel to other parts of the country by naval tanker and providing up to 20 tanker drivers to help. It is also making 890,000 litres of military fuel available to civilian aircraft to tide over the fuel crisis.
Gurbir Singh is a New Zealand-based feature writer & journalist.
He can be contacted at: gurbir@journalist.com & you can like him on Facebook