Laskaridis – Unimed Glory

Laskaridis är en grekisk familj som äger ett konglomerat vars moderbolag är Lavinia Corp i Liberia. Dotterbolaget Laskaridis Shipping har varit specialiserat på kylfartyg och fisktransporter men har under senare år diversifierat till tankers och bulkfartyg:

The Laskaridis family own several maritime interests that cover ship owning, vessel management and operation, shipyards, trading, fishing, and a network of agencies, all of which come under the umbrella of Lavinia Corporation. Laskaridis Shipping is the ship management arm of this Liberia-based organisation, which has been established in Greece since 1977.

In this role it is currently responsible for a fleet of 58 vessels that until 2010 was focused primarily on the delivery of high seas reefer transhipments. With 40 refrigeration vessels and support from the wider Lavinia Corporation community, the company became and defended its position as market leader. Business was gained in some of the world’s highest volume fishing regions: the Falkland Islands and Southern Atlantic Ocean, Far East Russia and Sea of Ochotsk, Southern Pacific Ocean, and Indian Ocean all become its major loading areas. Cargo was then delivered to clients in Spain, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.

For now this remains Laskaridis Shipping’s core business. One of its most impressive initiatives is sending reefer vessels along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the first Greek company to do so.

Alla båtar bolaget äger är bekvämlighetsflaggade i länder som Liberia, Panama, Vanuatu och Malta. Företaget har också ett dotterbolag i Ukraina, bemanningsföretaget STC, och äger fiskeriföretaget Unimed Glory, registrerat i Grekland och ägare till två större trålare, Odin och Frigg. Bägge två på 7 805 ton och registrerade i Vanuatu. Tidigare ägde man också eller möjligtvis skötte och bemannade också Athena, Frey och Thor med samma tonnage. Frey och Athena är numera skrotade och Thor är såld till det ryska fiskeriföretaget Akros Fishing och heter idag Boris Trofimenko. Odin och Frigg fiskar i allmänhet i Stilla Havet utanför Chile och Peru. Tidigare fiskade ytterligare en fiskebåt för bolaget i samma vatten:

Meanwhile, Unimed Glory, a subsidiary of the Greek company Laskaridis Shipping, operates three trawlers in the southern Pacific. They are owned in Greece, a member of the European Union. But, flagged in the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, they operate outside the control of Brussels and can catch more jack mackerel than a share of the E.U. quota would allow.

Per Pevik, Unimed Glory’s Norwegian manager, said in an interview that because Vanuatu did not meet E.U. sanitary standards, his fish could not be sold in Europe. Instead he sells jack mackerel to Africa. Asked whether the European authorities objected to his Vanuatu flags, he said, “No, they don’t bother me about that.”

In the southern Pacific, after years of aggressive fishing, industrial fleets find fewer and fewer jack mackerel. E.U.-flagged vessels collectively caught more than 111,000 metric tons of jack mackerel in 2009; the next year, the ships hauled in only 60 percent as much; by last year, vessels reported just 2,261 tons.

Fiskeflottorna i södra Stilla Havet har helt klart överfiskat chilensk ”jack mackerel” utanför Peru och Chile:

From 2006 through 2011, scientists estimate, jack mackerel stocks declined by 63 percent.

The SPRFMO convention needs eight signatures to be binding, including one South American coastal state. Chile — prominent in getting the group together in the first place — has yet to ratify.

SPRFMO decided at the outset it would assign future yearly quotas for member countries based on the total annual tonnage of vessels each deployed from 2007 to 2009.

To stake their claims, fleets hurried south. Chinese trawlers arrived en masse, among others from Asia, Europe and Latin America.

One newcomer was at the time the biggest fishing vessel afloat, the 14,000-ton Atlantic Dawn, built for Irish owners. Parlevliet & Van der Plas of the Netherlands bought it, renaming it the Annelies Ilena. Such “super trawlers” chase jack mackerel with nets that measure up to 25 meters (82 feet) by 80 meters (262 feet) at the opening. When they are hauled in, fish are sucked into the hold by suction tubes, like giant vacuum cleaners.

Gerard van Balsfoort, president of the Dutch-based Pelagic Freezer-Trawler Association (PFA), which represents nine companies and 25 European Union-flagged vessels, confirmed the obvious: the Dutch, like others, went to mark out territory.

“It was one of the few areas where still you could get free entry,” van Balsfoort said. “It looked as though too many vessels would head south, but there was no choice … if you were too late in your decision to go there, they could have closed the gate.”

By 2010, SPFRMO tallied 75 vessels fishing in its region. The mackerel rush also attracted the leading commercial player, the Hong Kong-based Pacific Andes International Holdings: PacAndes.

The company spent $100 million in 2008 to rebuild a 750-foot, 50,000-ton oil tanker into a floating factory called the Lafayette.

The Russian-flagged Lafayette, longer than two football fields, sucks fish from attendant trawlers with a giant hose and freezes them in blocks. Refrigerated vessels — reefers — carry these to distant ports. The Lafayette alone has the technical capacity to process 547,000 metric tons a year, if it operated every day. In September 2011, SPRFMO scientists concluded that an annual catch beyond 520,000 metric tons could further deplete jack mackerel stocks.

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Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Laskaridis, Lavinia, Unimed Glory, Grekland, Liberia, Panama, Ukraina, Malta, Vanuatu, STC, Odin, Frey, Athena, Thor, Frigg, Pelagiskt fiske, Stilla Havet, Chile, Peru, SPRFMO, Ekonomi, Fiske, Sjöfart

Tags: Laskaridis, Lavinia, Unimed Glory, Grekland, Liberia, Panama, Ukraina, Malta, Vanuatu, STC, Odin, Frey, Athena, Thor, Frigg, Pelagiskt fiske, Stilla Havet, Chile, Peru, SPRFMO, Ekonomi, Fiske, Sjöfart

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