Grieg Seafood reported an increase in global supply and demand for the second quarter of 2012.
The Norwegian company said the market development in the second quarter was largely similar to the trend in the first three months of the year, with supply growth remaining high driven by operations in Norway and Chile. At the same time, the market remained strong and showed itself capable of absorbing the historically high increase in supply. Overall, prices in the second quarter were on par with prices in the first quarter, but substantially lower than in the second quarter of 2011.
Grieg’s EBIT was NOK 13.7 million in the second quarter, down from NOK 142.9 million during the same time period last year. However, the harvest volume in the quarter increased by 15.1 percent to 16,437 metric tons.
Grieg took its biggest hit from a negative EBIT of NOK 27.4 million in Shetland due to biological challenges first identified in the first quarter of this year. As well as high production costs, weak biological production has also resulted in an unfavorable size distribution that led to lower realized prices.
“The development and level of costs in Rogaland has been especially gratifying. With a total EBIT before fair value adjustments of NOK 3.1 per kilogram, the three other regions record a satisfactory result under the current market conditions and we are seeing effects of measures taken over the past years to reduce the cost of production,” said Grieg officials.
