Alaska fishermen and processing plants are in limbo as a state-backed seafood company teeters

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'We are all sort of on pins and needles,' said a local official in King Cove waiting to learn the fate of Peter Pan Seafoods’ shuttered plant.

The fishing fleet in the Southwest Alaska town of King Cove would have been harvesting Pacific cod this winter.

Peter Pan owns plants in King Cove; in the remote Alaska Peninsula outpost of Port Moller; in the Bristol Bay hub town of Dillingham; and in the Prince William Sound city of Valdez. In interviews this week, community leaders, industry players and Peter Pan fishermen said they’re in limbo as they wait to find out if the company will survive, fold or somehow restructure its business.

An oversupply of fish, high interest rates and skepticism from lenders “have collided to seriously impact the industry and the communities and fisherman who rely on it,” Gillam said. Fishermen and local leaders complained that owner Maruha Nichiro, a global seafood firm, was underinvesting in Peter Pan during a period when there was competition from other fish buyers. But the company managed to keep its plants open.

Fishermen and community leaders are now waiting to find out if Peter Pan will open the King Cove plant for the summer salmon season. Doubts have also spread among the few dozen fishermen that deliver salmon to Peter Pan’s remote plant in Port Moller, 100 miles northeast of King Cove on the Bering Sea side of the Alaska Peninsula.

“The tenders that were hanging around, thinking that they would be working for Peter Pan, I think have seen the handwriting on the wall that that’s not going to happen,” said Hennigh, the King Cove administrator. “So, they’re trying to get tendering jobs with other plants.”

 

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