ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Paul Antle’s Marbase Marystown Inc. is getting ready to turn the Marystown Shipyard into the next big aquaculture hub in the country, after purchasing the shipyard for $1 million.
The vision is to turn the Marystown Shipyard into a coldwater aquaculture hub, with hopes of employing hundreds of people on the Burin Peninsula.
Antle says the Marbase hub in Marystown will be a multi-facted business aimed and supplying services to aquaculture projects in this province and across the country.
“Everything from robotics to net cleaning and cage development, waste management, feed systems, boat repair — I’m it’s endless the amount of service and the logistics associated with those services that we can drive from the Marystown footprint,” Antle told reporters following the announcement of the sale by Premier Dwight Ball at the Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association’s Cold Harvest Conference in St. John’s.
“The aquaculture industry in this province cannot grow unless the service capacity of our businesses grow. That’s what we intend to do. We help our local businesses grow, adapt new technology, innovate, to support that sector.
Marbase is a partnership between Antle, who is a former Liberal candidate in multiple elections and owner of the St. John’s Dockyard, and Norwegian aquaculture businessman Bjorn Apeland.
Environmental concerns will be addressed by the provincial government as part of the deal. An environmental site assessment completed in 1997-98 showed petroleum and heavy metals had contaminated soil and groundwater on the site, along with concerns of asbestos and lead-based paint used on the site.
The provincial government will spend $1.5 million on the clean-up and retain all liability for contamination that took place prior to 1997. Kiewit maintains its liability for the site for 1997 to Sept 23, 2019, while Marbase will assume all future environmental liability for the site.
Ball says work on the clean up will get going as soon as possible.
“This has been an existing liability. We’ve known this for quite some time. This was a government asset from 1966 to 1997. These are liabilities that would have been associated around that time,” said Ball.
“Embedded in this agreement, it’s always a polluter-pay principle. Whoever does the environmental damage are responsible for the work.”
Marystown mayor Sam Synyard says he’s happy to see Marbase able to move ahead with their project.
“The shipyard is a big footprint. It’s worth a lot more than Mr. Antle paid for it, of course,” said Synyard.
“It has the potential to employ hundreds of people doing interesting work. My motto is I really want Marystown to become the service centre of aquaculture in all of Newfoundland and Labrador.”
Marbase paid $1 million for the shipyard, purchasing from Peter Kiewit and his company, which owned the property since 2002, when the company purchased the assets from American company Friede Goldman. In 1997, Friede Goldman purchased the assets from the provincial government for one dollar.
Antle says he’s comfortable with the price paid to Kiewit.
“We have a lot of investment that we’ve left to make – it’s going to be tens of millions. Obviously as a business person, its in our best interest to get the lowest price possible when you’re buying an asset, especially an under-utilized asset. We’re comfortable with the price, but the investment we’re going to make is going to be much, much larger,” said Antle.
Ball says the property was worthless as it sat dormant.
Marine Workers Federation-Unifor Local 20 president Rick Farrell says union membership accepted a second offer from Marbase for workers on the site, which his members are pleased with.
“We have 168 members totally in our union. We’ll talk about 50 or 60 more people, at least, get back to work,” he said.
“It’s a four-year agreement, a two per cent wage increase every year. Group benefits, health and dental, with an RRSP plan, so it’s really encouraging.”
Farrell says workers covered under the union agreement can expect to be paid between $17 and $23 an hour for their labour, depending on the job.
He says he doesn’t expect to see temporary foreign workers hired on site.
“I don’t think we’ll require any foreign workers because we have enough people on the Burin Peninsula in our area in the membership to fill those gaps.”
