Russian investors are planning to build a large-scale fish processing complex in the Crimean city of Kerch, with capacity to process 75,000 metric tons of fish harvested in the Azov and Black Sea, making it the largest seafood processing company in the region.

Lazurny Okean Group, which is reportedly spearheading the project, recently presented it to Russian fishery agency Rosrybolovstvo.

"By the summer of 2017, the plan is to reconstruct the cold storage of 10,000 metric tons in the Kerch Fishing Port and create a fish reception point with the capacity of up to 40,000 metric tons per year," Kseniya Timakova, a spokesperson for Rosrybolovstvo, told IntraFish.

The second phase of the project involves the design and construction of an onshore facility to process Azov and Black Sea fish such as sprat, sardines, anchovy, bullhead and mackerel.

The highly automated facility will handle sorting, cutting, salting, drying, smoking and storage of fish, as well as the production of fishmeal, Timakova said.

In addition, the new onshore facility is likely to be supplied with fish from deep-water fishing vessels.

Rosrybolovstvo previously announced a plan to order five oceanic trawlers at Sevastopol-based shipyards.

"Currently, discussions of shipbuilding projects for the Crimean fishermen with potential investors are underway," the fishery department said.

The new onshore complex will launch by the end of 2018 and is expected to become the largest fish processing facility in Crimea.  

"The facility will significantly increase the volume of seafood production in Crimea, and expand its delivery to the rest territory of Russia and to the countries of the Russian Customs Union," Timakova said.

According to Rosrybolovstvo data, Russia’s overall seafood harvest in the Azov and Black Seas reached 103,000 metric tons in 2016.

The new fish processing facility could process more half of the total fish caught by Crimean fishermen.

According to Russian media reports, Lazurny Okean Group is the owner of an Ochakov-based fish-canning plant, as well as the co-owner, co-founder and shareholder of a number of fishing and trading companies on Sakhalin, Kamchatka, in Kaliningrad and Belarus.

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