Project Sea Dragon (PSD) Pty Ltd, regarded as one of Australia’s most ambitious aquaculture ventures, has been put into voluntary administration by its owner Seafarms Group Ltd (SFG).
In an email, SFG Director Harley Whitcombe advised Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) that the board has resolved that it is “no longer in the best interests of the company to continue to fund Project Sea Dragon”.
The email disclosed that Project Sea Dragon had received a decision of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors adjudicator in respect of a contractual dispute, which had determined that a total amount of AUD 13.9 million is payable by Project Sea Dragon in respect of claims for money owed following suspension of work in December 2021 and later termination of contracts in April 2022.
“As a result of the adjudication and the recent withdrawal of funding from SFG, the directors of Project Sea Dragon have resolved to place Project Sea Dragon into voluntary administration,” Whitcombe wrote.
Located on the Western Australia-Northern Territory border, Project Sea Dragon was seeking to build one of the world’s largest land-based shrimp farms, with the capacity to produce up to 180,000 tonnes of black tigers annually.
The project was awarded Major Project Status by the Federal Government in 2015. Some 10,000 hectares of production ponds were to be supported by a series of geographically separate facilities.
