Has anyone seen this article? Looks like interesting times ahead.
Clean Seas Tuna hopes to lure a financial partner, casting its net out as far as Indonesia to reboot its stalled southern bluefin tuna breeding program.
The company, based at Port Lincoln not far from the Great Australian Bight, suspended the program indefinitely in 2012 after racking up losses of tens of millions.
But now, after making its first profit in 13 years, Clean Seas believes it could successfully grow commercial quantities of bluefin tuna, providing it finds the right partner with a decent-sized cheque book.
Chief executive Craig Foster said the company wouldn’t restart the program if it meant risking their slim profit, which was $11.15 million after tax for the 12 months to June 30. This compared with a $34.46 million loss the previous year.
“What we need is a financial partner to be able to fund that work,” Dr Foster said.
Although Clean Seas could successfully spawn the tuna on land in tanks that mimicked the conditions of the South Java Sea, where their life cycle begins naturally, the fish were unable to grow past half a kilogram. The problem was the fingerlings died soon after being transferred into cages in the chilly waters of the Spencer Gulf.
Dr Foster said the bluefin tuna program had more chance of success if the company harvested eggs at its brood stock facility in Port Lincoln and flew them to warmer waters in west or east Australia or even Indonesia to grow to maturity.
“Certainly, we’ll have to look at Indonesia as part of the possibility. They have got aquaculture facilities that have been built that have very little usage and could be quite suitable for this purpose," he said.
“There is a good research station at Port Stephens [in NSW], Fremantle in WA and there’s a reasonable research station in Geraldton WA.”
Eighty per cent of the world’s total southern bluefin tuna catch ends up as sashimi and other delicacies in Japan, where it wholesales at Tokyo’s Tsukiji fish market for $30 to $40 a kilogram. One fish weighs up to 160 kilograms.
If Clean Seas achieved only a 1 per cent hatching rate, that would equate to 5 million fish a year, worth up to $4800 each, or $24 billion collectively.
But Dr Foster said Clean Seas won’t be rushed and in the meantime will be focusing on its kingfish program, the success of which has returned the company to profitability a year ahead of schedule.
“We hope next year that we will achieve close to 1500 tonnes of fish sales. That’s what we set out to do in our first objective,” Dr Foster said.
“Now that we are getting close to achieving that we are starting to think about our second target which was to rebuild the business to about 3000 tonnes of sales.”
Dr Foster said Clean Seas planned to grow kingfish sales in Asia and the Pacific as well as domestically. The product will be relaunched in coming months to bolster customer awareness, particularly those who are more affluent.
“Our target market is high end restaurants and high end retail, not general retail,” Dr Foster said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/clea...al-partner-20140817-1050j7.html#ixzz3CNxCzXnY
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- Clean Seas Tuna casts net wide for financial partner Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/clea
Clean Seas Tuna casts net wide for financial partner Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/clea
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