King Salmon chart open ocean future

New Zealand King Salmon has taken delivery of their new open ocean salmon farm service vessel in Picton.

On Friday, Marlborough Deputy Mayor David Croad, Marlborough District Council chief executive John Boswell, senior councillors and industry representatives were given an exclusive tour of MV Whekenui while it was berthed in Picton, led by NZKS project manager Zane Charman.

“It was a privilege to share Whekenui with Marlborough leaders last week,” says NZKS chief executive Carl Carrington.

“This vessel is a critical piece of infrastructure for our Blue Endeavour pilot and signals another step in our journey out to open ocean aquaculture.

“New Zealand King Salmon is an ambitious company on an exciting growth trajectory. It is important to share this vessel, and its role in our farming operations, with the wider Marlborough community, who will likely see Whekenui out and about in the Marlborough Sounds.”

A solid financial base ensures the company can deliver on its growth plan, which benefits Marlborough through stability and continued investment.

Whekenui was built in Vietnam by Southern Ocean Solutions with the name gifted to NZKS by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Kuia at a ceremony on October 22.

At 220 tonnes and measuring just under 24 metres long by 9.2 metres wide, Whekenui has self-contained accommodation for five people and can carry more than 100 tonnes of cargo.

As a dedicated service vessel, it will transport and discharge feed to the Blue Endeavour site seven kilometres off Cape Lambert outside the Marlborough Sounds – where an installation of a comprehensive mooring grid is underway – and provide power for winching farm nets, retrieve monitoring and photographic data, and transport personnel.

Other outlined investments in their newly released financials include a 3200-square-metre purpose-built warehouse at Port Marlborough to store salmon feed, and the acquisition of a commercial site for $8.14 million at Cloudy Bay Business Park in Blenheim for future processing requirements.

Much of the progress represents milestones for the Future Farming Programme – a five-year partnership with the Government to pilot technologies that will provide the blueprint for sustainable salmon farming growth in New Zealand. The project is co-funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund.

Despite supply disruptions affecting FY25 results and FY26 guidance, Carl says they remain focused on strengthening its core business and have shifted from being “cautiously optimistic to increasingly confident in our plans for the future”.

“Our direction of travel has not changed. We have our sights firmly on the delivery of our growth plan, through a series of well-timed, sequenced investments that will set our company up for future success.”