OceaNZ Blue Limited winner of the Skretting GREEN award!

Firstly, congratulations to the winner - OceaNZ Blue Limited. Rod Roberts, Research and Development Manager, gave us an update on the current situation on the eastern side of the Tasman. The details can be found in the next edition of Nexus - coming out early next month.
OceaNZ Blue is New Zealand’s largest abalone farm, located at Bream Bay, 1.5 hours north of Auckland. The company was formed in 2002 and started to market commercial quantities of paua (NZ’s name for abalone) in 2008. The Bream Bay site provides access to oceanic-quality seawater and a good temperature profile for the local NZ species, Haliotis iris.

Facilities

The farm is about 300 metres inland from the ocean and draws its intake water through two very large pipes that were originally installed for the inoperative Marsden oil-fired power station. The station was built just prior to the oil shocks of the 1970’s and was mothballed before commissioning, but the unused water intakes now serve both OceaNZ Blue and the adjacent NIWA Aquaculture Park.


Around 100 litres per second of seawater is drawn from 600 metres offshore in Bream Bay and is filtered to 10 microns. Once on farm, water is partially recirculated and water management includes biofiltration and UV treatment. The quality of the water used helps OceaNZ Blue maintain paua health and a disease-free status.

OceaNZ Blue operates its own hatchery and nursery, capable of producing 3 million 10mm juveniles each year. The quality of spat is being improved each year by the operation of a broodstock selection programme. Production facilities are a combination of slab trays and ‘tipper tubs’, and are to a significant degree self-cleaning. Growout facilities are indoors and in low light conditions, as dim lighting is preferred by paua.

Processing and Markets

OceaNZ Blue has a sophisticated cryogenic harvesting and processing facility on site, maximising the quality and freshness of delivered product. About 10-15% of sales are domestic with the balance sold throughout South East Asia and other Northern Hemisphere destinations. Product is sold fresh, frozen or canned.

While much product is sold by weight, the paua market has the unique characteristic of some product being effectively sold by length; it is difficult to imagine purchasing salmon by the metre, but this approach is not uncommon in the paua market.


The Future

OceaNZ Blue currently stocks around 1.5m juveniles per annum and harvests 90t of paua. Within 2 years production is expected to reach 140t per annum and around 3m juveniles stocked.



Once again, Skretting Australia would like to thank OceaNZ Blue for their concerted effort to minimise waste in our industry.