Marine Harvest records best ever Q3

MARINE Harvest has announced its ‘best ever’ third quarter results, with an EBIT of 207 million euros, up from € 194 million in the corresponding quarter last year. Revenues soared to just short of a billion euros at € 990 million (€868 million in 2017).

Total harvest volume was 109,896 tonnes in the quarter (95,338 in 2017). Harvest guidance for 2018 remains unchanged at 380,000 tonnes. Estimated harvest volume for 2019 is 430,000 tonnes.

However, in Scotland harvest volumes declined by 20 per cent compared to last year, down from 10,912 tonnes to 9,024 tonnes, and biological costs increased by 20 per cent.

Incident based mortality losses amounted to € 1.2 million (€2.1 million in 2017), mainly due to gill issues and mortality at the Inchmore hatchery, said Marine Harvest in its Q3 re- port. Sea lice levels at the end of the quarter were lower than at the end of the comparable quarter of 2017.

In Norway, lice is still a challenge for the farming operations, particularly in combination with fish being weakened by other biological challenges.

Sea lice levels at the end of the third quarter of 2018 were higher than in the comparable quarter for both Region Mid and Region North.

Although sea lice mitigation costs are still high, health costs are lower than in the comparable quarter.

Salmon of Norwegian origin achieved an operational EBIT per kilo of € 2.25 (€2.24 in 2017), while salmon of Scottish and Canadian origin reported € 1.36 and € 1.05 respectively (€2.33 and € 1.73). Salmon of Chilean origin reported € 1.28 (€1.30).

MH Feed reported an operational EBIT of

€ 7.3 million (€9.4 million) and the company saw an all-time high production volume for feed at 97,564 tonnes.

MH Consumer Products reported an operational EBIT of

16.0 million (€14.6 million).

CEO Alf-Helge Aarskog said: ‘This has been a very good quarter... Marine Harvest Feed produced record high volumes in the third quarter. I am very pleased that the growth continues with the opening of the new feed factory in Scotland in 2019.

‘It is also very encouraging to see the growth and margin achievements in our value added production in the US and Asia.’