WELLINGTON, Sept. 25 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand's fuel industry is "cautiously optimistic" as the pipeline disruption situation continues to improve, Energy and Resources Minister Judith Collins said on Monday.
"With the pipeline successfully repaired, the first 2 million liter batch of jet fuel is on track to arrive at Auckland Airport late tonight, subject to necessary settling and testing," Collins said in a statement.
Planes are expected to be fuelled using this supply from the early hours of Tuesday morning, and another 5 million liters should be available through the pipeline from Wednesday, Collins said.
The disruption arising from the Marsden Point fuel pipeline outage started about two weeks ago, which resulted in jet fuel shortage lasting for 10 days in Auckland, the country's largest city, and a great number of cancelled flights.
The amount of fuel being trucked from Marsden Point refinery, about 140 km from central Auckland, to the Auckland Airport continues to increase, with 184,000 liters expected to be delivered on Monday, which is more than twice the amount delivered on Friday, she said.
More jet fuel should be available from Wednesday, with trucks transporting stocks stored at Wynyard Wharf in Auckland, the minister said, adding that the New Zealand Defense Force will be providing expert support around the use of their fuel filter that has been provided at Wynyard.
"Industry remains cautiously optimistic but there's still plenty of work to do," she said, adding that flights in and out of Auckland Airport are continuing to look very much like business as usual, with only four international flight cancellations on Monday, and no domestic flights have been cancelled.
