PAGO PAGO, AS — Tri Marine International is pleased to announce that the project to rebuild the Samoa Tuna Processors facility in Atu’u, American Samoa took yet another major step forward this past week with the signing of the contracts for the construction of the new cold store facility.

This project will be undertaken by Pacific Engineering Projects, Ltd, with substantial involvement of local contractors. Construction will begin as soon as the building materials begin to arrive next month, and is projected to be completed in approximately 11 months.

The new facility will cover nearly 40,000 square feet, with the capacity to store over 5,000 tons of tuna. The new cold store facility will be highly energy efficient based on its design, construction and, most notably, its location. New, energy efficient refrigeration equipment will be installed and the building panels and construction will provide maximum insulation to limit energy use.

As important, the location and design as a component of the overall STP tuna complex will allow fish to be unloaded from the tuna boat directly into a climate controlled facility for sizing, sorting and storage. It will then be transferred to the cannery for processing without the need to ever go outside the facility or be transported on the road.

It will be built on the site made available by the demolition of the old COSI cold store facilities. The demolition of those facilities announced last October is now complete, a major task that was accomplished with the recycling of the vast majority of the old building materials and minimal impact on the Island’s landfill.

As reported previously, STP continues to receive, process and export fresh tuna by air freight for the premium tuna markets in both Japan and the United States mainland. A new blast freezer and two storage units capable of freezing and holding fish at minus 60 degrees centigrade have been commissioned and are in use in support of the premium quality processing operation. In addition, the 2,000 ton capacity cold storage facility located at the East end of the STP site is being used extensively in support of the American Samoa based fishing fleets to offload and store their catch. And just last month STP received a large shipment of frozen bait which is available for the local fleet.

Plans for the rehabilitation of the tuna canning operation and the new fresh fish processing facility along with a new seawall and dock to service the local alia fleet continue to progress and we expect to have additional announcements on those projects in the very near future.

Background on STP and Tri Marine

Samoa Tuna Processors is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Tri Marine Group of Companies. Tri Marine’s business includes fishing, procurement, processing and trading of tuna and other seafood products.

Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Tri Marine has offices in 14 countries with 12 processing plants located strategically around the world.Its owned fleet of 15tuna purse seiners operates mostlyin the Western Pacific.

Tri Marine was founded in Singapore in 1971. Since then it has grown to be one of the largest tuna supply companies in the world and it provides an efficient, cost effective and flexible supply chain solution for its customers. Tri Marine serves famous brands, processing plants and fishing companies.

Source: Tri Marine media release