Andrey Katkov, a Russian billionaire and one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies, is reportedly building an aquaculture facility in the country’s northwest region with an annual capacity up to 2,000 metric tons (MT) of salmon.
Numerous media outlets in Russia reported that Katkov’s Aquatrade is planning to build a salmon farm in the Leningrad region, near St. Petersburg. Aquatrade CEO Boris Shepelev told Kommersant business paper that the 42-hectare farm will require a RUB 500 million (USD 7.75 million, EUR 6.9 million) investment and will produce 2,000 MT of salmon a year. The construction process will be three-staged, with the first phase scheduled for completion in 2021, and the final one finished by 2023.
The farm will be performing full-production cycle operations, growing salmon fom fry through to processing finished products packed for retail. Aquatrade said it is planning to sell to retail chains in St. Petersburg, the Leningrad region, and the Moscow region, collectively home to more than 20 percent of the country’s population. Fry will be sourced in Denmark and South Africa, according to Shepelev.
Aquatrade will have to fight its way into the Russian market for salmon, according to Dmitry Zharsky, the managing partner of Moscow-based Veta, a consulting firm. Zharsky told the Kommersant that two other Russian aquaculture companies, Russian Sea Aquaculture and Russian Salmon, have been successfully covering the demand for salmon in the regions targeted by Katkov’s company.
This is not the first Katkov’s project in aquaculture. He also owns and operates a trout farm with the annual capacity of 2,000 MT in the Republic of Karelia. In 2018, the company announced an investment of RUB 50 to 70 million (USD 7.8 million to 10.9 million, EUR 6.9 million to EUR 9.7 million) through 2021 into enlarge its facilities to increase production to 6,000 to 7,000 MT a year, Delovoy Petersburg reported.
Katkov made his fortune in oil logistics and now owns assets in a variety of industries, including transportation, aquaculture, and construction materials. He is also a co-founder of the judo club where Vladimir Putin serves as honorary president.
The billionaire’s project is a sign of the growing trend of investors turning to aquaculture in Russia. In 2018, Russia’s total aquaculture output was 238,600 MT, up 8.6 percent over 2017, according to Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries. This figure is insignificant in comparison to the country’s wild-catch totals, which accounted for record-breaking 5.1 million MT last year.
Earlier this year, the Russia’s Ministry for Development of the Far East announced it will invest nearly RUB 80 billion (USD 1.23 billion, EUR 1.1 billion) into the aquaculture segment in the region over the next five years.
