Following a relatively slow 2005, Iceland’s Optim-Ice has an excellent order book that includes two brand new machines that have more capacity than any machine produced previously.
Among the contracts are orders for four BP-105s for two Irish pelagic vessels that are being built at the Vestværft shipyard in Denmark. Three BP-105s are being built for three newbuildings for Icelandic owners in Poland, and two BP-105s and a 2,100 liter storage tank for a Canadian newbuilding, a trawler fishing for haddock.
The company recently delivered a BP-120 and two 1,400 liter storage tanks to another Canadian owner who will be fishing for the vastly increased haddock quota in Canada.
It is also building two BP-120 Optim-Ice machines for two vessels from the Faroes Islands, partly owned by Samherji Iceland, with two 3,200 liter storage tanks. A precooler is being built for an Norwegian pelagic vessel to complement its RSW system. Finally there are two brand new machines type BP-140 and four 3,200 liter tanks for another Faroe Islands owner.
This brand new design is a bigger machine than has been built before, and will have eight ice generators and a capacity of just over 2 tonnes of 40% thick ice an hour, or over 48 tonnes a day. Power requirements for each machine is less than 55kW. This Faroe Islands owner has two trawlers pair trawling for saithe/pollock. Each of this new machine equals the capacity of two BP-120s, but will be more economical to build.
According to Gudmundur Jon Matthiasson, general manger of Optimar Iceland, “We are of course very pleased with all these orders. We think that the enormous effort to convince our customers about the qualities of our ice is finally paying off, not just through our work, but also the work of neutral agencies that are focusing on increasing quality in their relevant countries like Seafish in Scotland and BIM in Ireland. While the reliability of our machines is no longer an issue, the main reason why sales are picking up is, without a doubt, the fact that our customers realize that Optim-Ice gives better raw material and longer lifetime. In the end that is what it's all about.”
