Rena Disaster (2011)
The grounding of a container ship on Astrolabe Reef in New Zealand, which became the example of a wreck removal costing hundreds of millions while the owner's limited liability stood at about ten million.
The Rena, a Liberian-flagged container ship, ran aground at full speed on Astrolabe Reef, off Tauranga, on October 5, 2011, then broke in two. Fuel oil and hundreds of containers spilled into the Bay of Plenty in the country's worst maritime pollution. The case shows the gap between the two regimes that frame a shipowner. For ordinary third-party claims, it can set up a limitation fund computed on tonnage, in the range of a few million. But wreck removal, salvage and the cleanup demanded by the state fall under its P&I club cover, and that cost largely escapes the cap. The problem is as political as it is legal: should a wreck be removed in full, at a price unrelated to the environmental benefit, or should part of it be left on the reef? New Zealand ultimately allowed part of the wreck to remain in 2016.
In October 2012, the owner, Daina Shipping, settled with the New Zealand government for NZ$27.6 million, plus NZ$10.4 million if part of the wreck was left in place, while its limitation fund for other claimants had been set at about NZ$11 million; by then, the owner put the sums already spent on salvage at NZ$300 million, before the wreck removal had even begun.
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