ANNONCER
Icelandic trawlers Breki and Páll Pálsson are steaming home to Iceland from the yard in China where they were handed over to their owners, and are more than half-way through their long delivery trip – and have left ‘Marlboro Territory’ behind after clearing Suez.
HB Grandi has signed a deal with Marel for a FleXicut system and packing graders to be installed aboard its new freezer trawler, due to be delivered by Astilleros Armon in 2019.
Skaginn 3X’s new and improved RoteX Thawing will be displayed at Seafood Expo Global in Brussels this week.
Icelandic whaling company Hvalur hf plans to resume hunting for fin whales this summer after a two-year hiatus. The last whaling season was 2015.
The share of Icelandic fishing company HB Grandi held by Kristján Loftsson (also Hvalur hf’s owner) and Halldór Teitsson has been sold to Guðmundur Kristjánsson, owner of Brim. This places 34.1% of HB Grandi’s ownership into new hands.
‘There’s a closure along the south coast for the spawning season, so I decided we’d try our luck off the Westfjords. But it hasn’t been a great trip and cod are thin on the ground these days,’ said Eiríkur Jónsson who skippers HB Grandi’s trawler Akurey.
Representatives of Iceland’s National Association of Small Boat Owners (NASBO) are watching the development of the spring lumpfish fishery as a disagreement has developed over the number of days available. NASBO had proposed that the fleet’s days should be set at 40 for this season, but found that the authorities had limited them to 32.
Setting up production for groundfish in the north-eastern port of Vopnafjörður has provided a lifeline for employment in the region. HB Grandi is the remote port’s largest employer and Vopnafjörður with its proximity to the grounds where much of the pelagic fisheries take place was chosen as the focus for the company’s pelagic processing and fishmeal production. But these fisheries are highly seasonal, resulting in fluctuations in earnings. Adding groundfish processing to the profile has taken out the peaks and troughs, providing steady employment year-round.
Two new Skipasýn-designed fresher trawlers for Icelandic owners Vinnslustöðin and Gunnvör are about to start the 50-60-day delivery trip home to Iceland from the Huanghai yard at Rongcheng in China, via Singapore, Sri Lanka, Suez and Gibraltar.
The Síldarvinnslan fishmeal plant at Seyðisfjörður in eastern Iceland was last night evacuated after a long period of snowfalls combined with rising temperatures and rain created an avalanche risk as snow on the Strandartindur mountain overlooking the factory began to loosen.
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