Hangana Seafood – a subsidiary of the Ohlthaver & List (O&L) Group – on Monday, 15 April 2019 officially broke the ground for the construction of its new processing facility. Officiated by the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR), Hon. Bernard Esau, the factory will be an expansion of Hangana’s existing processing facility, and will cost close to N$300 Million to complete.
Managing Director of Hangana Seafood, Herman Theron during his address said the existing Hangana processing facility has a net asset value of N$ 389.3 million and a capacity of 21,900 MT throughput a year, and that the new factory, which will be an expansion of current operations will enable the company to extract more value out of its raw material and deliver products in demand. The construction of the new factory will cost Hangana Seafood N$293 million. Theron: “The new facility will have a capacity of 25,000 MT throughput a year, as well as cold store capacity of 2,500 MT which will be utilized for internal use (to build up stock in high performance periods, to take the sourcing of other raw material to the next level where we will be able to buy in bulk stock for re-processing and value adding and store for longer periods, thus maximizing on scale of price) and to also provide a service to other players in the industry in need of storage space/capacity. A further investment of N$ 19,800 million within the next 5 years in the existing factory will allow Hangana to process other fish species such as Horse Mackerel.
The investment into a new factory will significantly improve its processing capacity, support its diversification and trading strategy as well as provide opportunity for new right holders to participate in land based processing. It will also have the potential to create (depending on quota) additional jobs when operating at full capacity.”
Minister Esau in his keynote address stressed highly on the impact made by Hangana Seafood in the Namibia fishing sector, and highlighted the company’s saving of the Abalone farm in Lüderitz, which was officially inaugurated as the Hangana Abalone Farm on September 2018. Esau: “I take note that this new investment by the O&L Group of N$ 300 million is in addition to Hangana Seafood current asset portfolio of about N$ 389 million, and an additional N$ 40 million investment in the Hangana Abalone farm in Lüderitz, which I had the pleasure to officiate its opening in 2018. I wish to observe that these investments are a clear statement by O&L, of your commitment to the development of Namibia fisheries sector. I wish to sincerely commend Sven and your team for this dedication – which is in line with Namibia’s development goals, as stated in NDP5 – of industrialization, value addition and job creation.
Thieme stressed that the new Processing Facility of Hangana Seafood was identified as another opportunity to invest in the Erongo Region by creating employment for the people and community, and in so doing uplifting the lives of Namibians, in particular the community of Walvis Bay. Thieme: “The O&L Group is passionately driven by our purpose “Creating a Future, Enhancing Life”. Through this purpose, we realize that our contribution to the Namibian house must be more than developing innovative and sustainable businesses which render socio-economic benefits such as local value addition and job creation. Our role is also to contribute by challenging conventional ways of thinking and doing, so that we create new possibilities. In these tough economic times, we need to NOW more than EVER BEFORE, apply our genius – to look beyond the current challenges, – to imagine what we want our beloved Namibia to look like; what we want the world to look like, – and then to do everything (even what we would think is impossible), – to achieve this. I am confident that the new Processing Facility of Hangana Seafood will be a catalyst for innovation, creating new products and truly exciting our customers through local value adding. With our official ground breaking today, let’s embrace the wonderful reality of investing in the future.”
Construction of the new Hangana Seafood processing facility has commenced on the 2nd of September 2018 and the envisaged date for factory completion is scheduled for the 2nd of September 2020.
