Three Murmansk Fishing Enterprises Will Build Ships

May 27, 2010

Murmansk fishing enterprises (such as Robinson, Murmansk Governor Fleet and Murmanskseld-2) are going to complement their fleets. They have already prepared ship projects and allocated own resources for construction. Besides, certain loan funds have been taken out at banks.

Two vessels are designated for bottom-living fish capture while the third which is to be constructed by Robinson Company is a full-freezer totaling to EUR 50 mln. The company has a project, business-plan, and funds prepared, however the issue of placing the order is still under consideration. Not any Russian shipyard is capable of building of such a vessel. The company management is currently negotiating with foreign shipyards and assures that construction of the new full-freezer is to start this year. The order may be placed in Poland, Croatia or Spain.

Vadim Sokolov Deputy Chairman of the Fisheries Industry Committee of the Murmansk Region believes that the fishery fleet renewal is the major problem of the fisheries sector in the region. First of all, the problem applies to large vessels.Several years ago the solution consisted in their modernization. In due time over 10 large single trawlers were improved in such a way by means of investing from USD 3 to 10 mln. into each of them. As a result their productive capacity grew 3 times while fuel consumption considerably decreased. However today in the region there are no vessels to be retrofitted so that they could operate another 10 years. With ageing of vessels, requirements of oversight bodies become more severe which results in increase of maintenance and operation expenditures.

At 2009-end, the fishing fleet of the Northern basin was complemented only by one ship – trawler-seiner Lasurny – bought by Sfen Company of the Association of Fishery Managers of the North. This is an all-purpose up-to-date but not newly built ship (constructed at Faroes in 1990). If new vessels do not come to the region in the next 2-3 years, capture levels will start lower. In the near term, the stable functioning of the fishery sector of the Northern basin requires at least 3 new ships which will provide a means to take up a quota of 600 thousand tons of fish per year.

Source: OOO FISHNET

Three Murmansk Fishing Enterprises Will Build Ships

Read also: