Two of our vessels are now catching blue whiting.  Catches are going well at the moment but the ships have to travel up to 500 miles for the catch.   The blue whiting is processed in our fishmeal factory.    Our total quota for this season is around 67 thousand tons.

The vessels catching blue whiting are Gudrun Þorkelsdóttir and Jon Kjartansson.  The names of these vessels was changed this year. 

The capelin season is now close to an end.   Issued quotas were far lower then the average for the past few years.   This is a great disappointment as the fishermen have seen a lot of capelin and catches have gone very well.   

Over the past few years Eskja has processed   around 50-80 thousand tons of capelin.   This year we will process less than 20 thousand tons.   Our new vessel, Adalsteinn Jónsson, has been freezing capelin on board.   The production on board has been picking up and is now close to full capacity.  The vessel arrived to Eskifjordur early this year.    Between 2500 and 3000 tons of capelin will be frozen this season on board.

The new vessel Aðalsteinn Jónsson arrived to Eskifjordur on the 7th of January.  The vessel was bought from Norway and is named after the long lasting chairman of Eskja, Aðalsteinn Jónsson that retired in 2001.

As Eskja is buying a new pelagic vessel from Norway, arriving January 2006, a decision has been made to sell the vessel Jón Kjartansson.

Jón Kjartansson has been very successful as a pelagic purseiner and trawler.   The vessel was totally rebuilt in 1998/1999.    According to a statement from Lloyd´s Register the appropriate DOB (date of build) is 1998-99.

Select this link for detailed information about Jón Kjartansson.

Eskja has made an agreement to buy the Pelagic freezing vessel M. Ytterstad from Norway.    The vessel was designed by Skipsteknisk AS and build in 2001 by Myklebust Mek. Verksted in Norway.

The freezing capacity is around 120 tons per day.   It is equipped with filleting machines for herring and can also process caplin, mackerel and blue whiting.

The fishmeal factory of Eskja has processed over 133.000 tons of raw material during the first two quarters of 2005.   69.000 tons of Blue Whiteing and 64.000 tons of Capling.   This is a record in our factory.  Processing has run smoothly and product sales as well.  Demand for fismeal & oil is strong at the moment.