Following another mass die-off at land-based salmon producer Atlantic Sapphire’s Miami operations, some analysts are expecting as much as a 20 percent drop in production volumes for 2021.
The company reported the loss of 500 metric tons of fish at its Miami land-based salmon farm on Tuesday, which it blamed on a "weakness" in the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS).
The incident occurred when significant amounts of particles were allowed to flow from the drum filters (particle filtration systems) into the biofilters, the company said in an announcement on the Oslo Stock Exchange on Wednesday.
The 500 metric tons of head-on, gutted fish expected to be lost is equivalent of around 5 percent of the company's annualized Phase 1 harvest volumes, with an average weight of approximately 1 kilogram, said the company’s statement.
Christopher Robin Vinter, an equity analyst at SpareBank 1 Markets, expects the event to ultimately result in a 20 percent drop in the company’s annual harvest.
Vinter noted that the 500 metric tons of lost fish weighing 1 kilogram puts the total losses at around 500,000 fish. At 4 kilograms -- market weight -- the total harvest loss in 2021 would add up to 2,000 metric tons.
Initially SpareBank estimated a 10,000 metric-ton harvest from the company’s combined operations in the United States (8,000 metric tons) and Denmark (2,000 metric tons). Following Tuesday’s event, it has revised this down to 8,000 metric tons for the combined operations.
It is the third such incident for the company in the past year.
In March 2020, Atlantic Sapphire Denmark, experienced a mortality event in one of its grow-out systems losing around 227,000 fish.
Then at the end of July, Atlantic Sapphire's US subsidiary was forced to implement an emergency harvest of close to 200,000 fish.
The company's stock fell 5.7 percent after the US incident and 16 percent after the Denmark incident.
After Atlantic Sapphire announced the event Tuesday evening, the stock closed at NOK 138. As of this writing, shares are down close to 13 percent at NOK 120.50.
"The share seems to reacts negatively on incident news, but recovers after some time as the longer term potential and view remains positive," said Vinter.
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