Indonesian energy company PT Ratu Praba Energy is looking for partners to set up a tuna-fishing operation, having purchased 15 secondhand trawlers from an Italian supplier.
Company management has reached out to potential fisheries partners in Japan, South Korea, and elsewhere for assistance with setting up the joint venture, a source told SeafoodSource. PT Ratu Praba executives told one prospective partner it had good relations with Indonesian fishery authorities and can get licenses to operate trawlers in the Arafura Sea where, it said, tuna resources are plentiful.
Formerly a furniture maker, in the past decade PT Ratu Praba Energy switched focus to providing services for oil, gas, and mining companies.
While Chinese fishing firms like Pingtan Marine are active in the Arafura Sea – operating under local entities – political tensions have soured Indonesian companies on engagement with potential partners, which has ambitions to expand its tuna-catching and -processing activities in the region.
China has angered Indonesia and other Southeast Asian states by claiming much of the South China Sea as its own, resulting in frequent confrontations between fishing and naval vessels in the region, which is also the focus of energy prospecting.
In mid-October, Chinese fishing firm China Ocean Development said it was setting up a joint venture with an Indonesian partner through its “indirect subsidiary,” Qisen Fishery. The latter will take an 80 percent stake in the new joint venture with Indonesian firm Kanzun, which has a fishing quota from the Indonesian government for 56 fishing vessels in Indonesian waters for 30 years.
SeafoodSource contacted PT Ratu Praba Energy for comment but has not yet heard back from the firm.
Photo courtesy of PT Ratu Praba Energy
