Fishing is off at The Astrolabe, at least until the container ship Rena is able to be moved from the reef, and that is not expected to happen until the weekend.

BOP Regional Harbourmaster Carl Magozinovic has declared a 1km exclusion zone around the ship, which struck the reef at 2.20am.

Rena is stuck fast to the Astrolabe Reef. See more photos and video footage of the ship here.

Breaching the zone holds the possibility of a $20,000 fine.

'For a start they will be told to move on,” says Carl.

'The reef's clearly marked now – it's dangerous around there and come this weekend there might be all sorts of things going on.”

None of the 25 people on board were injured when the ship ran aground.

Some oil has been seen on the water, but it is thought to be hydraulic oil and it does not pose a significant environmental risk.

Maritime New Zealand activated its Maritime Incident Response Team (MIRT), which is made up of maritime experts, who are providing technical advice and oversight.

MNZ's Marine Pollution Response Service (MPRS) is setting up an incident command centre in Tauranga, staffed with around 25 members of the National Response Team (NRT).

NRT is made up of oil spill response specialists from around the country and in the event of a significant spill from the ship, would lead the response.

MIRT incident controller Renny van der Velde said the plans being put in place by the oil spill response team will form a safety net in the event of any spilled oil.

'While the aim is to remove the vessel with no oil spilled, it is important to have contingency plans in place in case something goes wrong.”

Wildlife experts from Massey University have also headed to Tauranga to support the NRT and prepare contingency plans to manage any risk to wildlife.

MNZ is also working with the Department of Conservation, which advises there are no immediate concerns for marine life – DOC has staff available to respond if required.

The vessel owner is responsible for coordinating a salvage plan, but they will have to get approval from MNZ before taking any salvage action.

Maritime NZ has not confirmed a salvage team is on its way from Singapore to assess the situation.

The 236m long ship is under charter to the Mediterranean Shipping Company and is operated by CIEL Ship Management SA.

MSC's New Zealand operations manager Mike Hodgkins says the containers on board Rena are a mix of full and empty boxes.

The shipping line is today organising rescheduling of cargo onto other ships in the service.

'There is a ship coming through every week,” says Mike.

'We have a number of ships, we are going through that at the moment to see what we can do with the cargo.”

Rena is on the line's Capricorn service calling at Brisbane, Singapore, Fremantle and back through Melbourne.

The Astrolabe Reef is about four nautical miles north of Motiti Island (about 12 nautical miles off the coast).