There was a lot of fuel on board the HMNZS Manawanui said New Zealand Defence Minister Judith Collins in an interview with media in New Zealand.

She has also suggested that with a ship of that size, there was always a risk of a spill.

She also suggested that a power outage may have caused the Royal New Zealand Navy ship to run aground on a reef off the coast of Siumu.

She said the focus was now on the environment, with divers being sent to Samoa to inspect the shipwreck and see if anything could be salvaged.

“What they’re going to do today is work out exactly where the ship is and exactly what the depth of water is because there is a huge difference if it’s at 50m or it’s 150m,” she told One News Breakfast Morning.

She said New Zealand would work with the government of Samoa and Maritime NZ, which has spillage equipment, to mitigate any risk of an oil spill.

The HMNZS Manawanui, a specialist dive and hydrographic vessel worth NZ$100 million sank on Sunday morning after it ran aground and caught fire.

A Court of Inquiry was launched to find out what went wrong.

In the interview, Collins suggested a power outage may have caused the ship to run aground.

“We need to find out what that happened, apparently it lost power, I’m aware of that, and ended up aground on the reef,” she said.

She said the Chief of Navy told her the Court of Inquiry had already begun its investigation and that the Chief of Defence told her a report on the incident was “a matter of weeks, or if it’s more complex, a matter of a few months” away.

“But we’re not talking six years in the piece,” she said.

Collins said the ship was 20 years old and originally used to map the floor of the North Sea for Norway.

“It was once basically a tender for oil rigs,” she said.

Collins said it was a good ship and had done some useful work.

The minister was also asked what kind of gap the Manawanui’s sinking would leave in New Zealand’s naval capability.

“It’s not a battleship. It was never built as that. It was built for diving support and surveying,” she said.

She said the Navy was “really hurting” after the sinking.

Collins said New Zealand should not be embarrassed by the sinking, as “it could have been a really, really massive tragedy".