Maritime Union flags concerns over coastal tanker threat

The Mari­time Uni­on says New Zealand’s energy secur­ity is under threat as New Zea­l­and flagged coastal tankers face an uncer­tain future.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the pro­posed clos­ure of the Marsden Point oil refinery leaves big ques­tions as to how fuel will be delivered in future to New Zea­l­and ports.

Two New Zea­l­and flagged and New Zea­l­and crewed coastal tankers cur­rently oper­ate on the New Zea­l­and coast, the MT Kokako and the MT Matuku.

The ves­sels are man­aged by New Zea­l­and oper­at­or Sil­ver Fern Ship­ping Lim­ited and owned by inter­na­tion­al oper­at­or ASP Ship Man­age­ment Group, which charters them to Coastal Oil Logist­ics Lim­ited (COLL).

COLL trans­ports pet­ro­leum products from Marsden Point to New Zea­l­and ports on behalf of its share­hold­ers BP, Mobil and Z.

Mr Har­ris­on says the Marsden Point situ­ation would have a “cas­cad­ing effect” and some con­sequences had not been con­sidered.

He says that if New Zea­l­and coastal tankers are removed from the pic­ture, it will be a blow to nation­al sup­ply chain secur­ity.

“Glob­al ship­ping and logist­ics are already in tur­moil, with major prob­lems due to ship­ping short­ages and port con­ges­tion.”

“If fuel deliv­er­ies were to come in on over­seas ships dir­ect to New Zea­l­and ports, this leaves New Zea­l­and wide open to the same type of dis­rup­tion that has affected ship­ping and ports glob­ally in the last year, but for essen­tial fuel sup­plies”.

Mr Har­ris­on says New Zea­l­and coastal tankers were able to offer a backup dur­ing dis­asters such as earth­quakes or flood­ing that dis­rupt land based fuel move­ments, provid­ing a level of redund­ancy in the sup­ply chain.

He says the fuel pipeline rup­ture between Marsden Point and Auck­land in 2017 was a real life example where coastal tankers provided a backup.

“The same would not hap­pen if we are depend­ent on over­seas tankers who were locked into sched­ules and had no oth­er com­mit­ment to New Zea­l­and.”

Mr Har­ris­on says it is essen­tial that a mari­time nation like New Zea­l­and has the abil­ity and resi­li­ence to ser­vice its own ports with its own ship­ping, and coastal fuel tankers were a major part of the mix.

He says the Mari­time Uni­on is ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to do a risk ana­lys­is of the situ­ation and to back New Zea­l­and ship­ping.