Oman Fisheries renews usufruct pacts for another 30 years

MUSCAT, NOV 21

Oman Fisheries Company (OFC), which is partly owned by the Omani government through wholly state-owned Fisheries Development Oman (FDO), says it has secured extensions for long-running usufruct agreements spanning another 30 years.

These new agreements confer usufruct rights over government lands currently hosting the sizable holdings of Oman Fisheries in the form of processing plants, warehousing and storage facilities, refrigeration plants, and collection and retail outlets, among other support infrastructure.

“Oman Fisheries Company renewed the usufruct agreements with government authorities for the next thirty years,” the Chairman of the publicly-listed company said in the Director’s report of its third quarter performance.

The renewals come amid a strong uptick in Oman Fisheries’ operations in the wake of a number of recent initiatives by the company to boost fishery production. Q3 022 marked the start of commercial fishing operations in partnership with Irish fisheries firm Atlantic Dawn.

Around 1,215 metric tonnes (MT) of small pelagics were procured under the arrangement with Atlantic Dawn — part of a quota of 30,000 MT per year allocated by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources under an agreement signed earlier this year.

Atlantic Dawn Group, one of Europe’s largest producers of frozen pelagic fish, operates a vertically integrated business.

Accordingly, it is engaged in every link in the chain from first catch to final customer.

The company operates across multiple territories and seas to supply a global market, utilising a modern fleet of fishing vessels.

In other developments during the quarter, Oman Fisheries procured 1,200 MT of fish from Al Wusta Fisheries Industries — a subsidiary of FDO — under an agreement signed by the two sides recently.

Separately, Oman Fisheries also procured a total of 18,548 MT of fresh fish from artisanal fishermen, among other sources, as part of its commitment to augmenting the incomes of small Omani fishermen. This compares with a procurement of 15,070 MT during the corresponding period of 2021.

Significantly, exports accounted for 83 per cent of total revenue generated during Q2 2022, while the rest came from domestic sales, the Chairman stated.

Oman Fisheries achieved a consolidated turnover of RO 11.161 million from operations during the first nine months of 2022, compared to a turnover of RO 7.890 million for the same period last year.

The Group earned a net loss of RO 76K during this period, down from RO 1.539 million for the corresponding period of 2021.