Solving a €100 million problem
Marine Harvest's decision to establish its own fleet has largely been inspired by its astronomical wellboat rental costs.
Marine Harvest set up DESS Aquaculture Shipping this year, in a 50-50 joint venture with Deep Sea Supply – a company which has nearly 40 vessels involved in the oil & gas industry. It is probably not entirely without significance that a certain Cypriot citizen, John Fredriksen, is the main shareholder in both Deep Sea Shipping and Marine Harvest.
The company’s CEO, Jon Are Gummedal, told kyst.no that Marine Harvest spends €100 million annually renting 44 wellboats.
“Marine Harvest has also seen the high margins in wellboat industry, which has been a reason why they wanted to establish something for themselves,” he said.
Gummedal stressed that, although they will operate DESS in collaboration with Marine Harvest, it is necessary to cooperate with other players as well.
“Our ambition is to become the largest player in this segment,” emphasizes Gummedal. “We will build vessels that are cheaper to build and cheaper to operate than the current wellboats.”
DESS’s first wellboat will be delivered to MH Canada in the third quarter of 2017 and the company has an option for three more 3,000 m3 capacity vessels. It also has a processing boat currently being designed.
