HMNZS MANAWANUI

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340,000 litres of liquid has been recovered from the Manawanui

In the process of the removal of diesel fuel and other pollutants from the HMNZS 'Manawanui', the salvage barge has returned from the wreck site to Apia to unload tanktainers of liquid, completing the second cycle of removal. The salvors have recovered a significant amount of liquid from tanks, after operating above the 'Manawanui' for the past 17 day. The salvors have pumped liquid from the larger and more accessible tanks, and were now moving to harder to reach, and smaller, tank. At this stage of the operation the salvors’ divers need to cut access into the ship to reach the more difficult to get to tanks. There are 54 tanks of various sizes on the ship. Some contain diesel fuel, some lubricating oil, and some water, wastewater and bilge water. As of Feb 4, just over 340,000 litres of liquid has been recovered from the 'Manawanui'. Of this an estimated 320,000 litres of diesel fuel mix has been recovered from the ship’s diesel fuel tanks. This liquid is a mixture of diesel fuel and seawater. The amount of diesel fuel in the liquid recovered won’t be known until the liquid is processed, although the majority of the volume of liquid recovered so far is assessed to be diesel fuel. In addition to the liquids from the diesel fuel tanks, the salvors have recovered around 18,000 litres of lubricating oil from oil storage tanks within the ship.

Initial phase of fuel removal completed

The initial phase of fuel removal from the 'Manawanui' has been completed at the Tafitoala Reef. 950 tonnes of diesel were on board when the ship went down. The salvors have recovered a significant amount of liquid, a mix of fuel and other pollutants along with seawater, which has been pumped from the tanks in the ship up into tanktainers on the barge. Cycle one tanktainers were offloaded in Apia more than a week ago and cycle two tanktainers were stored on the barge. The offloaded tanktainers were being stored at the port while disposal processes for the fuel and pollutants were being organised. The liquid was tested in preparation for processing. The salvage teams have faced technical challenges in extracting the remaining fuel and pollutants. The Sāmoan government had expanded areas for fishing activities based on recent water testing results. For safety reasons, a two-kilometre-restricted zone around the 'Manawanui' remains in effect during the ongoing fuel removal. The second cycle in the removal was now well underway, with the salvors making excellent progress in favourable weather conditions.The salvors have pumped the fuel and other pollutants from the larger and more accessible tanks. Now they were preparing and pumping liquids from harder-to-reach areas. Once tanks are pumped of fuel and other pollutants, they are sealed. The salvors were continually monitoring the weather and sea state. It was thus not possible to provide an exact timeline of when the fuel recovery operation would be completed. Report with photos: https://www.samoaobserver.ws/category/samoa/112909

Sunken survey ship will not be replaced and is likely to stay on the bottom

The 'Manawanui' will not be replaced, according to Defence Minister Judith Collins, as dive and survey work is not the Defence’s “main job”: "I’d rather have that money go into the fact that we have a large maritime area, and we have to be significantly more, say, able to deal with that and what might be happening in the future.” Collins will before the end of March reveal the Government’s long-awaited Defence Capability Plan, which will outline billions of dollars of defence spending for the coming decades. Major decisions need to be made about navy assets in particular, with much of the fleet reaching end-of-life in a decade. The $103 million dive and survey vessel acquired by defence in 2019, was among late-arising issues in the development of the plan, which Collins said was being considered by Cabinet. Collins said she would not spend $120m or $200m on a new survey ship, given dive and survey needs could be met by the offshore patrol vessel HMNZS 'Otago' and the new Niwa vessel 'Kaharoa II'. Also unresolved was a question of whether the 'Manawanui' would remain on the sea floor which would depend on discussions with the Samoan Government. However, Collins suggested it was likely to remain in place. "The reality of actually taking it off the sea bed, where it's been sitting there now for quite some time, may be almost impossible, and could possibly bring other issues to bear that are even more dangerous. But it might become part of a reef." Report with photos: https://www.thepost.co.nz/politics/360554576/sunken-manawanui-will-not-be-replaced-collins-says