Construction of a second in a series of longliners is in progress at the Northern Shipyard (Severnaya Verf) in St Petersburg, with the keel-laying ceremony held yesterday for an MT1112XL processor-longliner to be delivered at the end of 2020.
The first in the series, Gandvik-1 is already well underway and now the second longliner for fishing company Virma, Gandvik-2 has begun.
Both longliners are designed to fish primarily for cod and haddock in the Barents Sea and Norwegian Sea, operating with waste-free catch handling systems, catches processed on board and with high-efficiency longline systems.
The 59 metre overall by 13 metre beam longliners are expected to have an endurance of around 5 days and a handling capacity for 30 tonnes of fish per day.
According to Virma’s director Ivan Pasynkov, the Karelian Fishing Fleet Group of Companies (KRF), which includes Virma, currently operates six trawlers, three of which are foreign-built. KRF supplies the Russian market with cod, haddock, capelin, blue whiting, herring, mackerel and redfish totalling around 100,000 tonnes annually.
Northern Shipyard general director Igor Ponomarev commented that at the end of 2018, the yard signed an contract for the construction of a third longliner for Virma.
Altogether, the Northern Shipyard is building 14 fishing vessels. These are the three longliners for Virma and one for Globus, as well as ten factory trawlers for the Norebo Group, all of which has been made possible by the investment quotas initiative.
