ANNONCER
The final meeting of the four coastal States, Iceland, the EU, Norway and the Faroe Islands, as well as the Russian Federation, on the management of mackerel fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic in 2012, was concluded in Reykjavík today. Unfortunately, no agreement was reached at the meeting.
‘We’ve been fishing for redfish and saithe on the Mountains and now we’re off to the Hali grounds to finish the trip with some cod. We don’t expect any problems with getting our ration of cod, as everyone agrees that there’s plenty of cod everywhere. There’s generally something that goes with the cod and there’s a chance of hitting some good fishing on haddock as well,’ said Bjarni Einarsson, skipper of Ásbjörn RE when we spoke to him during their present trip.
Yesterday HB Grandi’s pelagic vessels, along with two other vessels brought in to fish the company’s capelin quota, had taken 51,000 tonnes of capelin so far this season, equivalent to half of the company’s allocated 102,000 tonne quota. According to Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson, head of department at HB Grandi’s pelagic division, an additional quota is also expected to be issued as it seems unlikely that the Greenlandic fleet will be able to catch its full quota.
Certification of Fisheries based on the FAO-ISO model
Responsible management of fisheries is of fundamental importance to Iceland as fisheries are one of the main pillars of the Icelandic economy. Icelanders have structured a fisheries management system to ensure sustainable use of marine resources. Germany is in the forefront in promoting sustainable use of natural resources and it is therefore natural to present the Iceland Responsible Fisheries programme to the German seafood industry at the Fish International 2012 exhibition in Bremen.
‘It was perfect in every way. We dropped right down on the capelin mark exactly where we had been told it would be and didn’t need to spend any time searching. We shot first on Tuesday afternoon and managed to fill the purse seine. That was around 1400 tonnes of good-sized, quality capelin, although there was some feed in it so it wasn’t right for freezing,’ said Gudmundur Hafsteinsson, first mate on Víkingur AK.
So far this year approximately 11,000 tonnes of capelin have been landed HB Grandi’s fishmeal production plant at Vopnafjördur. 1200 tonnes of capelin meal was shipped out from Vopnafjördur at the beginning of the week and although frozen products have already been shipped out this week, this is the first meal shipment of the year.
Total value ISK 127.2 billion
So far this year 2800 tonnes of capelin have been frozen at HB Grandi’s pelagic processing plant in Vopnafjördur. The market for this is in several eastern European countries and this week 1800 tonnes of frozen capelin products were shipped onto a reefer vessel.
Ingunn AK is now steaming to Akranes with a full load of around 2000 tonnes of capelin on board, and is expected to dock tonight, after which fishmeal production can start. This is the first landing of capelin to Akranes this season, with the last landings at the end of last year’s season in March.
This year’s capelin fishing started well with a 900 tonne first landing at Vopnafjördur last Thursday by Lundey NS. This was followed by Faxi RE and Ingunn AK between them delivering a further 2500 tonnes, with an 1100 tonne second landing by Lundey now being discharged.