CEO of Hav Line, Carl-Erik Arnesen, does not want the world’s largest harvesting vessel to spend time going back and forth to Hirtshals, Denmark.
Thursday, the world’s largest salmon packing facility was officially opened in Hirsthals. Present was a couple of prominent guests, including CEO of Hav Line, Carl-Erik Arnesen. The only thing missing was the harvesting vessel itself, “Norwegian Gannet”.
To SalmonBusiness, Arnesen said that he envisages that “Norwegian Gannet” will not be delivering salmon to Hirtshals in the future.
“The next natural step forward will be that ” Norwegian Gannet” goes between fish pens Norway and slaughter fish, and then later we use transport vessels to bring the fish to Denmark,” he said.
When SalmonBusiness visited Hav Line Processing in Hirsthals, the slaughter line machinery stood still. Since the New Year, the packing facility has slaughtered nearly 8,000 tonnes of salmon. A number that is very far from the capacity of the facility, of almost 10,000 tons per week.
Also in “Norwegian Gannet” the slaughter line machinery stands still for long periods.
“Now the machines in the world’s largest harvesting vessel are unused on the transport down to Hirtshals and up again to Western Norway. First, we have to get the packing facility in Hirtshals up and running in a proper way, but it is clear that transport vessels and thus better utilization of “Norwegian Gannet” are a natural way forward,” said Arnesen.
Theoretically, the “Norwegian Gannet” has a harvesting capacity of 160,000 tonnes of salmon per year.
Arnesen does not believe a solution with transport vessels should present greater problems with the authorities than Hav Line has already had.
“Why shouldn’t we be allowed to do this? The only challenge is the case related to the production fish. There must be a solution to that,” Arnesen said.
