A pilot project farming giant shrimps for export, which could lead to an investment of R3,6-billion over six years and create close to 4 500 direct jobs as well as numerous downstream opportunities, is planned for the Coega industrial development zone.

SeaArk Africa – a 50 per cent joint venture between SeaArk Holdings Incorporated of the US and the Bosasa Group of Companies of South Africa – has been formed with the main purpose of developing marine aquaculture farming facilities in Africa and the Middle East. The company’s first development will be at Coega.

SeaArk Holdings Incorporated is a member of the Fausel Foundation of the US, while Bosasa is a diversified broad- based black economic empowerment group of companies that provide facility management, security, access control, information technology, fleet cost management, and fleet asset financing.

Bosasa chief executive officer is Port Elizabeth businessman Gavin Watson.

The company has already published its intention to conduct an environmental impact assessment for a pilot study for the growing of Penaeaus vannamei, or white prawns, adjacent to the existing mariculture facility in the IDZ.

SeaArk Africa has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Coega Development Corporation, and negotiations are under way for the project support agreement that will commit the company to invest at Coega subject to a number of conditions.

These include the Port of Ngqura becoming operational (which is scheduled for July, 2008), the successful completion of the EIA, and the provision of infrastructure for the project.

Construction of the access road to Zone 10, where the shrimp project will be located, is under way.

Planning for the project follows hard on the heels of an announcement that an EIA is to get under way for the R640-million first phase of a stainless steel precision strip mill in the IDZ – of which the second phase will cost a further R960-million – and the news that Straits Chemicals plans to invest R1,1-billion in a chlorine plant and desalination plant at Coega.

SeaArk Africa says that the operation will be based on “a world-class proprietary indoor bio-secure production facility” that is being developed with the aim of breeding and growing-out colossal shrimps for the export market.

The facility at Coega will be constructed on 1 100ha of land on which 31 200 bio-secure tunnel facilities will be constructed, with 62 400 “raceways as grow-out facilities”.

The company states that the venture will also include processing, packing, and distribution functions. It should be completed by 2011.

It adds that, in addition to job creation and the transfer of skills, SeaArk Africa “will also make a valuable contribution to the wealth and upliftment” of the region.

SeaArk breeds its own brood stock at its hatchery in the Bahamas, and the “post larvae” will be introduced at Coega for grow-out, with the mature shrimp stock earmarked for export to the US and markets in the East.

After the completion of a grow-out cycle, the fully grown shrimps are harvested, cleaned, pealed and processed for the market at a processing plant, while all waste can be processed into other organic feed.