A strong market and high salmon prices resulted in a significantly improved third quarter for Norwegian salmon producer Grieg Seafood.
Operational EBIT for the quarter was NOK 78.8 million (USD 13.2 million, EUR 9.8 million), up from a loss of NOK 69.4 million (USD 11.7 million, EUR 8.6 million) during the third quarter of 2012.
Rogaland achieved an EBIT of 12.91 NOK (USD 2.17, EUR 1.60) per kilogram (kg), while Finnmark had an operational EBIT of 9.58 NOK (USD 1.61, EUR 1.19) per kg. The EBIT in Shetland reached 0.05 NOK (USD 0.008, EUR 0.006) per kg, while in Canada the EBIT was a loss of 2.71 NOK (USD 0.46, EUR 0.34) per kg.
The group's total harvested volume in the third quarter was 13,953 tons 1,000 less than predicted and an 8 percent decrease from the same period last year. The company expects to harvest a total of 60,000 tons this year.
“The salmon market was strong in the third quarter, driven by good demand and stable supply, compared with the corresponding period in 2012. The third quarter is normally characterized by seasonally falling prices as a result of an increase in harvest volumes, but this year salmon prices developed unusually strongly, with only a brief dip in prices at the end of the third quarter,” Grieg said.
“This, in turn, was again replaced by increasing prices at the start of the fourth quarter.”
The company said the third quarter was characterized by weak results from the two regions outside Norway due to biological events in previous periods as well as abnormally high costs and lower underlying production.
“The results from B.C. were unusually weak due to the low underlying production as a result of previous biological events, which caused exceptionally high unit costs for biomass harvested in the third quarter. Underlying production volumes are expected to normalize towards the end of 2014. Results from Shetland showed an improvement on the first half-year, although still weak.”
