St. Petersburg-based Severnaya Verf on June 31 laid the keel for the third of six freezer factory trawlers for Russian whitefish giant Norebo Group.

The new vessel, Kapitan Ostashkov, is designed for cod and haddock fishing in the North Atlantic and is expected to be delivered to Karelian Seafood JSC, a unit of Norebo, in 2021.

The construction of the third new trawler will be followed by another three vessels for Norebo’s northwest fishing companies Karat-1 JSC, Alternative JSC and Murmansk Region Fleet JSC in three to six months. All six vessels are scheduled for delivery between November 2020 and August 2022.

Design of the new trawler is based on the 170701 project, developed by Icelandic design company Nautic, one of the Knarr Maritime group of companies. Technical and workshop documentation, adapted to the requirements of the Russian Maritime Register of Shipping, were worked out by the Russian Nautic Rus, a member of the Knarr Group.

The new 81-meter freezer factory trawlers are designed for fishing with bottom and pelagic trawls, using advanced fishing technologies for non-waste fish processing, capable of producing chilled pollock fillets, mince, roe, liver and meal.

The fish processing plant will be able to produce 150 metric tons of products per day, while freezing equipment will have capacity of 100 metric tons of product per day.

The construction of six cod and haddock freezer factory trawlers will be followed by four more vessels of this type for Norebo’s Far East fishing companies Akros JSC, Blaf JSC, Roliz JSC and Sakhalin Leasing Fleet JSC, designed for pollock and herring catching in the Okhotsk and Bering Seas.

“Norebo won at auctions for the distribution of investment quotas for pollock and Pacific herring recently held by the Federal Fisheries Agency, Rosrybolovstvo,"

Norebo was recently awarded investment quotas for pollock and Pacific herring, and expects to formally ink the deal this month, Sergey Sennikov, a spokesman for Norebo Group, told IntraFish.

The first of the new harvesting vessels will be launched next year, with all four pollock trawlers scheduled to be delivered between December 2022 and August 2023, he said.

According to the company, the cost of each new trawler will be around RUB 4 billion (€56.7 million/$62.6 million).

“The construction of new trawlers is carried out at the expense of Norebo’s own funds and with Sberbank loans, which allows us making long-term investments in updating the company’s fishing fleet," Sennikov said.

Norebo Group is one of the three largest fishing companies in Russia, which includes 16 fishing companies in the northwest and Russian Far East. The holding company operates more than 40 medium- and large-tonnage vessels that carry out fishing in all key harvesting areas of the Atlantic and the Pacific Ocean.

Last year, Norebo’s overall seafood catch amounted to more than 618,000 metric tons.

Fisheries

Russian shipyard starts work on Norebo's third $60 million factory trawler