Oman: An aquaculture project which is expected to add 3,000 tonnes of fish per year was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MoAF) on Monday.
The ministry announced that the first phase of fish farming project consisting of 32 floating cages in Quriyat, with a production capacity of 3,000 tonnes of long finned seabream (Koffer) per year has begun.
The Ministry of Housing had in 2016 signed a land allotment agreement with the Blue Waters Company for setting up the long finned seabream aquaculture project in Quriyat. The allotted area for the project expands more than 1.7mn sq m in the sea.
Oman is steadily making progress to achieve high fish productivity through large scale aquaculture projects. MoAF is currently considering 24 projects worth RO852.67mn, capable of producing 293,000 tonnes of fish annually.
The total expected production from these projects will be around 293,000 tonnes a year, valued at RO733mn. The income from these projects will be around RO7.8mn as direct revenue, while creating more than 13,000 job opportunities.
The ministry said that five major aquaculture projects (totalling 13,100 tonnes) will be implemented from 2017 to the beginning of 2018. The projects include production of 4,500 tonnes of Indian white prawns in Jalaan Bani Bu Ali, a project in Duqm to produce 1,000 tonnes of sea cucumbers and 1,500 tonnes of grouper and a project to produce 1,000 tonnes of abalones and 1,500 tonnes of groupers in Shalim and Hallaniyat Islands, and 600 tonnes of barramandi in Sur.
Other applications that the ministry is considering include projects to produce 2,850 tonnes of local shrimps, 500 tonnes of groupers, 400 tonnes of finfish, 2.4 tonnes of sea cucumbers, 900 tonnes of shrimps and 330 tonnes of abalone. In addition, there are three projects undertaken by one company for the production of 6,250 tonnes of groupers, 4,986 tonnes of local shrimps and 145 tonnes of barramandi.
Source: http://www.muscatdaily.com/Archive/Oman/Aquaculture-project-in-Quriyat-with-3-000-tonnes-capacity-launched-54te#ixzz4xmWelPbh