Faroe Islands-headquartered Bakkafrost Group has confirmed that a strong, four-day storm caused significant destruction at two of its farming sites in the South Island (Suðuroy), A23 Hvalba and A15 Froðba. The damage caused the loss of 1 million salmon with an average weight of 2.1 kilograms.
In a statement, Bakkafrost said that the storm, which raged between 28 February and 2 March, overstressed some of the farming equipment in Hvalba and damaged nets in 12 pens at the two farming sites. At A15 Froðba, a continuous ground swell over five days caused significant mortality of the fish.
The farming equipment is insured and the fish is insured at cost value, the company said.
Bakkafrost had previously stated an expected harvest of 57,000 metric tons (MT) HOG in the Faroe Islands for 2020. This incident is expected to reduce this by 5,000 to 6,000 MT.
Last month, the company announced that it had achieved total operational earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of more than DKK 1.3 billion (USD 198.3 million, EUR 174 million) in 2019, up from less than DKK 1.1 billion (USD 167.8 million, EUR 147.2 million) in the previous year. Its annual profit fell from DKK 960.3 million (USD 146.4 million, EUR 128.5 million) to DKK 801.9 million (USD 122.3 million, EUR 107.3 million).
For 2019 as a whole, Bakkafrost harvested 65,109 MT of salmon, with the 57,184 MT of fish from the Faroes besting the previous year’s total of 44,591 MT.
Following its majority acquisition of the Scottish Salmon Company (SSC) in October 2019, Bakkafrost has forecast a harvest of 35,000 MT by its Scottish Farming segment.
With 60 sites across the Scottish west coast and Hebridean Islands, SSC produced 33,799 MT of gutted weight salmon in 2019. Its current annual production capacity is 50,000 MT.
