WELLINGTON (AP)--New Zealand will lodge formal protests with the governments of Japan, France and Britain over a shipment of nuclear fuel due to pass near its territorial waters, Foreign Minister Phil Goff said Sunday.

"The chance of an accident at sea, while small, cannot be discounted," Goff said.

The British-flagged ship Pacific Pintail, accompanied by the Pacific Teal, left Cherbourg in France Friday bound for Japan with a load of mixed uranium and plutonium oxide fuel (MOX). The voyage is expected to take about two months.

It wasn't immediately clear exactly when the ships, owned by British company Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited, would pass through the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

The shipment is the second MOX delivery to a Japanese nuclear power plant to pass New Zealand, following a shipment in July 1999.

"There is also a security risk in the sense that it is technically possible, although very difficult, to use MOX in the construction of nuclear weapons," Goff said in a statement.

The ships would travel via South Africa's Cape of Good Hope before passing New Zealand, British Nuclear Fuels spokesman Mark Scott told New Zealand Press Association.

Scott said the ships didn't intend to pass through New Zealand's territorial waters.

Goff said air force surveillance planes could be sent to monitor the ship if it approached New Zealand waters.

Scott said the purpose-built transportation ships were among the safest vessels on the sea.

Tasman Sea Nuclear Free flotilla spokesman Tony Atkinson said at least six Australian and New Zealand yachts would leave from various ports Feb. 15 to protest the ships' "evil cargo."

"There is no way that the northern nuclear powers responsible for this dangerous shipment can get away with using our oceans as a nuclear highway," he said.