Ministry Increases Capelin Fishing Quota for This Season

"I’m very pleased the Minister for Industry and Innovation and the Marine Research Institute are thinking along the same lines as the industry and have issued an additional capelin quota, based on initial results of the assessment of the catchable stock. Having to wait for the final results would have stopped fishing and production, so this was certainly good news," commented HB Grandi CEO Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson when the decision was announced to add an extra 150,000 tonnes to the original initial quota for capelin this season.

He said that if this decision had not been taken, fishing companies would have had to reduce their activities or stop fishing altogether so as to not endanger their possibilities for catching roe-bearing capelin when the fish are at their most valuable.

The additional quota means that HB Grandi’s quotas are increased by roughly half from 37,000 tonnes to around 58,000 tonnes. The company currently has 27,000 tonnes of its 58,000 tonne quotas still to be caught.

"Our vessels caught approximately 58,000 tonnes of capelin last year between the 8 February and the end of the season, so the situation is tighter now than it was a year ago. According to the latest reports, we can expect to see a further increase in quota once the final calculations have been made. This is based on the cautious approach of the initial quota, and also that before the latest research cruise was complete there were indications of a greater amount of capelin than the advice for the quota increase was based on," Vilhjálmur Vilhjálmsson said.