Half the Russian king crab fleet last year decided to move its base facilities to Tromsø. Now, the fleet is back in Kirkenes, the town located only 10 km from the Russian border.
The service company for the fleet, the Arctic Services, will operate from the premises of local shipyard Kimek. Kimek leader Greger Mannsverk says to newspaper Sør-Varanger Avis that Kirkenes has major benefits from the fleet.
Over the last years, the king crab has spread explosively in the Barents Sea, making crab fishing a good business. The crab was originally artificially moved to the Barents Sea by Russian marine researchers in the 1970s.
Over the last years, a major number of Russian fishing vessels have moved to Norwegian ports instead of the nearby port of Murmansk because of Russian red tape and insufficient facilities.
