Russian Aquaculture Company salmon farm. (Photo: RAC)

Russian Aquaculture is recovering, after a dire year

RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Wednesday, February 22, 2017, 02:10 (GMT + 9)

The aquaculture company Russian Aquaculture gained solid revenues and increased fish production in 2016, after heavy losses in the financial year 2015.

According to the company’s last financial report, revenues from salmon farming in Murmansk Oblast in 2016 amounted to RUB 2.01 billion (USD 34.5 million) and revenues from activities in neighbouring Karelia worth RUB 461 million (USD 7,9 million).

Last year, Russian Aquaculture sold a total of 4,680 tonnes of salmon to the markets, an increase of 136 percent from 2015, with revenues in the period up as much as 292 per cent.

In addition, by the end of the year, the company registered a total of 9,196 tonnes of salmon in its cage nets, almost three times more than the previous year.

The upturn in results comes after the company in 2015, almost collapsed following mass death of its salmon stocks. Many thousand tonnes of fish died in overfilled cages and decomposed remains were left rotting on several sites all over the Kola Peninsula.

Experts found that the large salmon mortality was due to breeding procedures: in cages that were to hold 80,000 fish, the company placed up to 200,000, according to The Independent Barents Observer. This situation caused it to lose about RUB 300 million (USD 5.1 million) in the first half of 2015, and its debt to increase.

With the sale of Russian Fish Company, the company was able to reduce its debt by RUB 1.8 billion (USD 30.9 million) and close the year 2016 with a total debt of RUB 3.16 billion (USD 54.3 million), 28 per cent lower than that of the previous year.

Currently, the Russian Aquaculture farms salmon on three sites in fjords along the Kola Peninsula.

In the Republic of Karelia, it has trout production in five facilities in the lake of Segozero. In 2016, trout production amounted to 1,722 tonnes.

 
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