Expansion of Samherji’s land-based Arctic char farming site at Stadur near Grindavík is continuing despite the COVID-19 crisis, the Icelandic seafood company has confirmed.
The latest construction phase has seen three new sea holes drilled into the lava at the production site, where the company already operates a nursery and on-growing facilities.
According to Samherji, the drilling “has been successful despite the fact that everyone has to change their procedures due to the current pandemic situation.”
These wells, which will be activated in June, will ensure sufficient water delivery for the facility, according to Hjalti Bogason, Samherji Fishfarming’s director of operations in the southern peninsular region.
“This will significantly increase the capacity of the farm. We are pumping massive amounts of water. When construction is complete, the station will be able to pump 2.5 cubic meters of seawater per second," Bogason said.
Samherji’s Grindavík fish farm was recently granted a larger operating license, taking its char production up to 3,000 metric tons (MT).
The production process sees newly-hatched alevins transferred from the hatchery at Núpar in Ölfus to the Grindavík nursery. The fish are reared there for 10 to 12 months or until they reach 100 grams in size, before being moved to on-growing tanks. At harvest, the char is pumped from the site and transported live in a specially equipped truck to Samherji's processing plant at Sandgerði.
The company also has a license to produce 1,600 MT at its Vatnsleysa facility.
According to Bogason, the company’s fish farming operations in the region will be able to produce almost 4,000 MT of Arctic char once the latest construction phase is complete.
Samherji Fishfarming is the world's leading producer of Arctic char, with a harvest of around 3,800 MT per year. The company said this is almost half of all the farmed char produced worldwide.
In 2019, Iceland exported a record ISK 25 billion (USD 171.7 million, EUR 158.1 million) worth of farmed fish products, which represented an increase of 90 percent on the previous year.
Photo courtesy of Samherji
