This year Magadan fishing company “Mag-sea international” has re-equipped its vessels that work on the crab and whelk fishery, and it has allowed to create a greater variety of producing seafood products and reduce its cost.
The General Director of company Mikhail Kotov says:
«Now, we produce whelk finished products actually being out in the sea. Previously, there were semi-finished products produced on the vessel, and then sent to the factory for further processing. It was long process and more expensive. The re-equipment of the ship’s technological complex allowed us to proceed whelk processing to the finished product actually at the fishing place. This innovation will certainly have a positive impact not only on the quality of valuable seafood, but also on its final cost, because we have significantly reduced processing costs by 30 percent. Our vessel «Alexander Shalin» will deliver the first batch of purified fresh-frozen whelk in a convenient kilogram package to Magadan in a few days.»
The improvement of technological lines also affected the company’s operating crab fishing vessels. There is the opportunity to produce not one, as before, but three types of products, depending on market demand: raw frozen crab, brine or air-frozen crab on every crab fishing vessel now.
This range of crab products (and not just this) will be produced on the new complex fishing vessel named «Atka», which is waiting for retrofitting in the Chinese port of Dalian.
«Unfortunately, the coronavirus pushed back the construction deadline,» Mikhail Kotov said. — «Atka» was supposed to come to Magadan three months ago. We hope that the quarantine period is coming to an end, and our specialists and the crew will soon be able to go out to China to put the finishing touches: install navigation, processing, and other equipment that requires fine-tuning. Essentially, it’s a job in a matter of few weeks».
At the same time, “Mag-sea international” is designing a large fishing vessel together with its Norwegian partners. This will be a supermodern, 96 m long trawler that can catch and process up to 450 tons of herring and other fish per day.
Magadan fishermen are planning to build it at Turkish shipyards: there is no production capacity in Russia to build fishing vessels of this class.
To recap, the keels of two medium-sized vessels were laid at the Khabarovsk shipyard at the end of March by order of “Mag-sea international”. The contract with value more than 2.5 billion rubles was signed as part of the development of the Russian shipbuilding industry and the implementation of state programs on crab and investment quotas.
Despite the restrictive quarantine measures, the shortage of shipbuilders, financial problems of the Khabarovsk shipyard and other objective difficulties, construction is on schedule.
«6 sections of the hulls of the future crabbers are built. They should be launched this year, and turnkey completed by 2022. We intend to continue our cooperation with Khabarovsk shipbuilders and then order them to lay five more fishing vessels – even more economical and efficient in operation. The fleet renewal has begun. We sincerely hope for the implementation of further plans. And we have a lot of plans, » Mikhail Kotov said.