Having announced a joint venture last Friday that could see some of his out-of-use OSVs put into use in the fishing sector, John Fredriksen could now also see some of his loss making bulkers deloyed as fish farms.
Marine Harvest, a giant salmon farmer in which Fredriksen is a major investor, is looking at a new design concept whereby panamax bulkers become floating fish farms. A panamax could hold around 1m fish.
“The economics of a conversion is not fully known yet, but a ballpark estimate would be $7m for a 10-year-old panamax with $2.5-5m of conversion costs with licenses costing in the range of $6m.
This compares to a traditional fish farm where the sea pen costs around $6m, but permits would be more costly – to the tune of $40m or more,” Arctic Securities shipping analyst Erik Nikolai Stavseth said in a note.
