The
aquaculture company Russian Aquaculture gained solid revenues and increased
fish production in 2016, after heavy losses in the financial year 2015. According
to the company's last financial report, revenues from salmon farming in
Murmansk Oblast in 2016 amounted to RUB 2.01 billion (USD 34.5 million) and
revenues from activities in neighbouring Karelia worth RUB 461 million (USD 7,9
million). Last year,
Russian Aquaculture sold a total of 4,680 tonnes of salmon to the markets, an
increase of 136 percent from 2015, with revenues in the period up as much as
292 per cent. In
addition, by the end of the year, the company registered a total of 9,196
tonnes of salmon in its cage nets, almost three times more than the previous
year. The upturn
in results comes after the company in 2015, almost collapsed following mass
death of its salmon stocks. Many thousand tonnes of fish died in overfilled
cages and decomposed remains were left rotting on several sites all over the
Kola Peninsula. Experts
found that the large salmon mortality was due to breeding procedures: in cages
that were to hold 80,000 fish, the company placed up to 200,000, according
to The Independent Barents Observer. This situation caused it to
lose about RUB 300 million (USD 5.1 million) in the first half of 2015, and its
debt to increase. With the
sale of Russian Fish Company, the company was able to reduce its debt by RUB
1.8 billion (USD 30.9 million) and close the year 2016 with a total debt of RUB
3.16 billion (USD 54.3 million), 28 per cent lower than that of the previous
year. Currently,
the Russian Aquaculture farms salmon on three sites in fjords along the Kola
Peninsula. In the
Republic of Karelia, it has trout production in five facilities in the lake of
Segozero. In 2016, trout production amounted
to 1,722 tonnes. 
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