News

Last night the seine got stuck in the screw propeller of Baldvin Þorsteinsson EA 10.  The ship was fishing capelin off the south coast of Iceland near Skardsfjorur.  The ship started drifting towards the coast due to spring tide and southerly winds.  Other purse seines that were fishing nearby came to the rescue but all wires and robes were torn. A distress signal was given and the Coast guards helicopter was soon in the air heading for the scene as well as rescue units onshore.  The ships crew counts 16 men and the helicopter rescued all of them from the stranded ship and brought them to a nearby village Vik to rest.

Shipping A shipping division has been formed at Samherji head office due to increased shipping activities.  The division, which coordinates shipping for all other departments of Samherji, is directed by the companys Managing Director but Unnar Jónsson will be a spokesman for the division.  Hildur K. Arnardottir who has started working again for Samherji will also work at the shipping division but she worked in the sales- and export department in the years 1998-2002.

Samherji Ltd. was run profitable by 1,067 million ISK in the year 2003 according to the Annual report compared to 1.879 million ISK in the year 2002.

Samherji´s daughter company Onward Fishing Company Ltd.  in Scotland and the Dutch company Parlevliet Van der Plas B.V. have decided to take up discussions with Kaldbakur to purchase all shares in the fishing company Boyd Line Management Services Ltd., which is registered in Hull, England.  The ownership of Boyd Line will after the purchase, be divided equally between Parlevliet Van der Plas and Onward Fishing Co.

Three Norwegian tramp steamers hired by Samherji hf., have in the last few days collected products from  Samherji and other collaborating companies, in harbours in the Northern and Eastern part of Iceland for export. The quantity totals just over 8.500 tons of frozen products; almost entirely capelin products. The fourth tramp steamer shipped a few days ago about 2.400 tons of capelin products from Iceland so in a short time this transport totals almost 11.000 tons.

Samherji hf and Framherji aps. have bought 42% share in the cold store Bergfrost in Fuglafjordur in the Faroe Islands. The cold storage is in three tunnels, which have been blasted out of the mountain.  Total size of the three tunnels is 50 thousand cubic, which take up to 13 thousand tons of frozen products on pallets.  Bergfrost´s management is more economic than regular cold stores since it takes less energy to sustain frost inside the mountain.  A building of 700 square meters is under construction on the premises for sorting and  registering products.

Baldvin Þorsteinsson EA-10, Samherji´s multi purpose vessel., left Riga in Latvia last sunday night and had just passed the Faeroe Islands this morning, on it´s way home. The ship is expected to be in Akureyri on Saturday.

Mr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson and his wife Mrs. Dorrit Moussaieff  visited Samherji today.  The reason for the visit was the granting of The Presidents of Iceland´s award to Samherji, last spring.  Along with the President and his wife were members of the award´s dispensation commitee and reprentatives of the Trade Council of Iceland.  The guests were well greeted by Þorsteinn Már Baldvinsson, Director of Samherji, Kristján Vilhelmsson, Managing Director of ships operations and almost 200 other empoyees of Samherji. 

The operations of  Samherji hf. were profitable by 622 million ISK the first nine months of the year 2003.

So far this year, Samherji´s export in tramp steamers has been twelve thousand tons of frozen products, both white fish and pelagic fish. The products have been transported from Iceland to various harbours in Europe. One of these ships, Green Snow, which takes about 1.850 tons fully loaded, is now in Neskaupstaður and the aim is to finish loading the ship tonight. Green Snow has previously docked in Grindavík, where 425 tons were loaded and in Reyðarfjörður, where barely 300 tons were loaded on board. The majority of the cargo is herring fillets, but also some white fish products.