GOOD PROGRESS ON FACTORY EXTENSION

The extension of the HB Grandi fishmeal factory at Vopnafjördur is making good progress and is expected to be completed shortly. The factory has a production licence for 850 tonnes of raw material per 24 hours and once the extension is complete, production capacity will be 1150 tonnes.

‘It is a big job. We are adding new air dryers, centrifuges, presses, coolers and distillation systems. A few changes have had to be made and we expect that the existing factory will be ready to receive blue whiting on Wednesday and the additional systems will be up and running soon after that,’ said Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson, factory manager at the Vopnafjördur plant.

He said that Hédinn has been in charge of the factory extension at Vopnafjördur, along with several sub-contractors, including Elrún, which has handled the electrical work and carpentry and metal workshops in Vopnafjördur. At its busiest, the work has called for around twenty tradesmen to be working on the site.

The switch to concentrate on electrical power at HB Grandi’s Vopnafjördur location instead of the old oil-fired systems has resulted in a significant saving in energy costs and a reduction in imports of fossil fuels. The factory utilises locally-sourced energy, but the problem remains that if there is a power shortfall, then there is still a need to be able to fall back on the old-fashioned method to make it up. There have been power shortfalls during last winter, but Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson said that these have not as yet affected the factory’s operations.

‘The main reason is that there has not been a great deal of activity. Most of the capelin we received was frozen for human consumption and we have only processed around 600 tonnes of capelin for fishmeal
that were the result of waste from the frozen production. We are concerned about the blue whiting season that has just started. There are low water levels in all the reservoirs, but even under better conditions it’s still the supply itself that is the problem as this does not have the capacity to deliver enough power to outlying regions,’ Sveinbjörn Sigmundsson said.