Icelandic fishing gear company Fjarðanet is working on plans to build a new net loft at Neskaupstaður in eastern Iceland. Land has been reclaimed next to the Síldarvinnslan factory and the area is now ready for construction to start.
Building work is scheduled to start in the spring and to be complete by autumn 2017. Now that the reclamation work has been done, the next stage is to drive in steel piles for the adjoining quayside, allowing fishing vessels to discharge gear direct into the net loft and to pick up gear just as easily.
Further land reclamation is expected to take place, resulting in more space in the area close to the Síldarvinnslan fishmeal plant.
The new net loft will have 2200 square metres of floor space, with an 85 metre long building 26 metres wide for the net loft, lifeboat servicing facilities, a wire workshop, gear storage and offices, with the net loft occupying the full length of one half of the building. All of Fjarðanet’s activity will be switched to the old building from the old net loft that dates back to 1965 and which is now far too small for the demands placed on it. Fishing gears are much larger than in the past, and pelagic trawls in particular require more working space. This work has mostly been done outside, but from next year, Fjarðanet’s staff will be able to work on pelagic gear indoors.
‘Our facilities haven’t been good enough for some time now and the new building will give us some first-class facilities,’ said Fjarðanet managing director Jón Einar Marteinsson. ‘We have every intention of offering the best possible service to customers in future and the new building is the basis of being able to do that.’
