A “game-changing” tuna loader arrived in Majuro and is now set up and ready for operations at the Pacific International Inc. dock.
The equipment is specially designed to unload tuna from a purse seiner and funnel it through an extended conveyor belt into a freezer container at dock side. The equipment is expected to cut the time to unload purse seiners, making shoreside delivery of tuna more attractive to the fishing industry.
Currently only about five percent the tuna that is transshipped through Majuro annually is unloaded into freezer containers at dockside. The vast majority of tonnage is transshipped to carrier vessels that anchor in Majuro’s lagoon.
Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority Director Glen Joseph said the goal is to expand use of freezer containers by increasing the volume of tuna unloaded at dockside to 30 percent.
Shoreside unloading increases the potential for jobs in the tuna industry, including more revenue and business for Stevedore and Terminal Company handling of containers and shippers moving the containers to market. All of which translates into more tax revenue for the government.