Global joint venture project
Ozpure Agritech in Guangdong, China
Overview
This global project is our first formal joint venture in a foreign market. We established this project to demonstrate the feasibility of Murray cod aquaculture in a Chinese semi-urban environment.
The main goal of this project is to demonstrate that recirculating aquaculture technology could be applied to Murray cod aquaculture in an urban, foreign environment using tested bore water and the same major fish husbandry principles that we employ at Uarah Fisheries.
This joint venture is undertaken in conjunction with local businesses, and has attracted a great deal of continuing positive interest from industry and government bodies at the local, provincial and even national levels. The location of the site is in the Jiujiang district of China’s Guangdong province – the largest hub of aquaculture production and logistics in the whole country.
Involvement
The planning, site-selection, design and assembly of the production infrastructure were commenced in late 2015 and were completed by mid-2016, with the nursery being finished even earlier, by early 2016. Our initial shipments of Murray cod fingerling seed stock from our hatchery were delivered to the project in April 2016.
Strategic and financial oversight in this project is shared with the local stakeholders, who also coordinate most of the sales and marketing initiatives.
Technical direction and oversight is conducted by Uarah Fisheries. We have our own technicians acting as the designated project leader and accompanying supervisors overseeing the productions systems and personnel. Further consultancy is provided by our own Operations Manager, who visits the site multiple times a year to provide overall technical guidance.
The first market size fish were ready by late 2016, which we trialled in the restaurant and hotel sectors to a tremendous reception by the local consumers. We have since finalised the nursery infrastructure at the site, and supplied far higher numbers of Murray cod larvae for the 2016/17 season, with substantially higher volumes already being prepared for the 2017/18 and 2018/19 seasons as well.
As a result of the successful trial of our initial harvest, we are now in discussion with several other parties at the national and provincial levels for expansion of this current project, and for additional projects in other major provinces.
Indeed, one large-scale national project arising from these discussions has already commenced as of early 2017, as outlined below.