Murmansk-based Russian North West Fishing Consortium (SZRK) inked a deal with Vyborg Shipyard on May 31 for the construction of six specialized crab catching and processing vessels.

All of the vessels will be equipped to produce frozen-on-board red king crab and opilio snow crab products harvested in the Barents Sea.

The design of the new crabbers is based on the ST-184AS project, developed by Norwegian design bureau Skipsteknisk.

The vessels will have an overall length of 61.9 meters as well as a beam of 15 meters.

Production capacity of the crabbers will be 30 metric tons of frozen products per day, while the cargo freezing hold capacity will be 330 metric tons, up three times compared with the average Russian crab vessels today.

“The first vessel is to be commissioned in the end of 2018, while the whole series of new crabbers is scheduled to be built by the end of 2021," Nikolai Nazarenko, deputy director for development and operation of the fleet at SZRK, told IntraFish.

More to come

In addition to the six domestic newbuilds, negotiations for the construction of two additional ST-184AS vessels at a foreign shipyard are underway, one industry source told IntraFish.

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“The two crab catchers could be built abroad by August 2019," the source said.

The cost of one of these new crab vessels is estimated at around €30 million ($33.6 million), according to the source.

SZRK was established in 2002 with the merger of several companies from Murmansk, Saint-Petersburg and Petrozavodsk, which are involved in fishing cod, haddock and crab in the Barents Sea.

The group has a red king crab quota of around 8,000 metric tons and opilio snow crab quota of about 7,000 metric tons in the Barents Sea.

The deal for the construction of six specialized crab catcher-processors was signed during the official ceremony of the laying a head trawler in a series of four 86-meter bottom trawlers of the ST-118L project at the Vyborg Shipyard for Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet (ATF).

ATF is the largest fishery company at the Russian Northern Fishery Basin, operating as a structural part of SZRK, involved in fishing both the bottom and pelagic species in the areas of the North Atlantic.

Previously, SZRK announced a plan to invest $80 million (€71.4 million) in the renovation of ATF's out-of-date fleet.

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