National Prawn Company (NPC) of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and AKVA group ASA have entered into a delivery contract and Letter of Intent (LOI) for contemplated aquaculture deliveries during 2009-2011.
NPC already operates the world's largest shrimp production site at its location in Al-Leith, south of Jeddah in the Red Sea. NPC has now decided to expand its activities to include production of marine finfish, and has ambitions to establish production capacity of 35-50,000t of Yellowtail Kingfish (greater amberjack).
NPC and AKVA have worked closely together to develop the production systems and strategies since the first consultancy agreement was signed during the Aqua-nor exhibition in 2007. In January the Board of Directors of NPC approved the plan to build the first "pilot scale" facility for the production of 5,000t of fish.
The first major deliveries from AKVA are the main components for a brood stock facility and the LOI includes delivery of a complete marine hatchery, two complete marine nursery systems, a complete marine pre-grow-out facility and four complete marine grow-out facilities.
For AKVA the brood stock delivery has a value of about NOK7m and the LOI agreement has estimated value of about EUR15m (NOK135m) and is planned for delivery during 2009-2011. The development of the future stages to reach 35-50,000t production will be decided based on the success of the pilot scale operation.
