In late June, a second in a series of 10 super-trawlers that the Russian Fishery Company (RFC) had ordered at The Admiralty Shipyard in St. Petersburg was floated out, and the third in the series had its keel laid.
The second vessel, Mechanic Maslak, was floated out after a ceremony attended by senior Russian government and company officials including RFC Owner and Chairman Gleb Frank.
Ilya Shestakov, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries, said in a speech at the ceremony that the quota investment program initiated by the Russian government in 2016 had resulted in RUB 200 billion (USD 2.8 billion, EUR 2.5 billion) in investment into the country’s fishing fleet and seafood processing facilities.
As part of that program, RFC placed an order Russia’s Admiralty Shipyard for 10 vessels of the ST-192 class, at a cost of RUB 65 billion (USD 913.1 million, EUR 812.9 million).
The first vessel in the class was launched in late March 2020. The third vessel, the “Mechanic Sizov,” is in the latter stages of construction, and along with the fourth vessel, will be launched in summer 2020, RFC said.
Each super-trawler’s capacity is nearly 60,000 metric tons (MT) of annual catch, twice as much as the capacity of the vessels the company currently operates. The vessels are equipped with state-of-the-art processing equipment capable of carrying out deep-freeze, waste-free processing of the entire catch into high value-added products, primarily pollock fillet and surimi.
“There were a lot of skeptics who had been saying that Russian shipbuilders would fail in construction of modern fishery vessels. But we can see the ship being built and floated out,” Admiralty Shipyard CEO Alexander Buzakov said at the launch of the Mechanic Maslak.
Some Russian shipyards have struggled to deliver on contracts for fishing vessels signed under tight deadlines set by the investment program, and Buzakov acknowledged the challenge of fitting the modern equipment demanded by RFC into the “rather small hull” of the new class of ships. But Buzakov said despite the difficulty, the shipyard has thus far managed to deliver on time, and he said the experience it gained during the construction of the lead vessel has sped up the construction of subsequent class vessels. Sections of Mechanic Maslak were partially equipped with some systems before the launch, and that approach will be used in the future to further reduce the time needed for post-launch equipment installation and testing, RFC said.
In his own speech, Frank said since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian fishing companies often bought second-hand vessels abroad, eventually coming to fully depend on foreign shipbuilders. But he praised the investment quota program, which he said has resulted in a much-needed renewal of the fleet and a rebirth in domestic shipbuilding for the fisheries sector.
“The investment quotas are a game-changer,” he said. “But it’s important to note that the program will help renew the fleet by only 50 percent. We are going to see further investments in the fleet.”
Additionally, the company also confirmed to SeafoodSource that it had bought out the minority own of its new pollock processing plant near Vladivostock.
RFC, which already owned 65 percent of the plant, acquired the 35 percent share owned by DV Invest for RUB 700 million (USD 9.9 million, EUR 8.8 million).
The plant, being built as part of the quota investment program is of "strategic interest" to the company, according to RFC spokesperson Evgeniya Tsymbal.
“The group consolidated a 100 percent stake in the authorized capital of the Russian Pollock LLC,” Tsymbal said. “TDV Invest played a role of a financial investor."
The plant is scheduled to be commissioned 1 September, 2020.
Photo courtesy of Russian Fishery Company
