Reports of oil leaking from Rena have been explained by the wreck's owners and insurers as krill.
The spokesman for Rena's owner Daina Shipping Company and insurer The Swedish Club, Hugo Shanahan, said a Resolve Salvage & Fire patrol boat went out on Wednesday to inspect a report of a brown bloom at Astrolabe Reef and found the substance was krill, not oil.
The response comes after a story published today about reports on Tuesday and Friday of large amounts of oil believed to have come from the wreck.
In today's story, Mr Shanahan said Resolve salvors had noted that trapped pockets of residual oil would be released as part of the recovery operation.
"Sightings so far have all risen to the surface and dissipate[d] before evaporating very quickly - confirming that these deposits are in very small quantities."