Not a Boondoggle: The headline that should rattle Western salmon spreadsheets
Senhai MK vessel launch, July 20 - 22, 2025
On August 7, 2024, a brand‑new privately owned, LP‑backed company called Senhai MK was incorporated in Zhejiang, China. Fewer than 12 months later, on July 20–22, 2025, it took delivery of a 225‑metre, 1996‑built panamax bulker converted into a 80,000 m³ mobile fish farm targeting ~2,800 mt/year of harvest, including Atlantic salmon. Officials say the conversion model cuts construction costs by up to 70% per m³ versus building new—and the company has three capesize conversions queued up next. (For reference, a capesize vessel is too large to fit through major canals and is obliged to take the long way around between oceans)
That is not a state‑owned vanity project. Corporate registry data show a Hainan LP owns 55%, a Zhoushan vehicle owns 30%, and the firm’s legal representative is Sun Yanlai—this is private capital executing at speed, not a ministry with infinite budgets.
Why this matters (and why the tone here is urgent)
Over the last decade the Western salmon narrative has been simple: supply growth is structurally capped, capital costs are gigantic, and anything that might scale (large RAS, offshore structures) takes forever and burns oceans of cash. That story—“permanent scarcity”—has justified project valuations, price assumptions, and investor decks from Atlantic Sapphire to Andfjord Salmon to Salmon Evolution. But a <12‑month private Chinese build‑convert‑launch cycle at a claimed ≤70% lower capex per m³ is a direct attack on that cost‑and‑time floor.
The facts you can’t wave away
1) Private, for‑profit, LP‑backed. Senhai MK is not a state-owned enterprise (SOE). It’s a 2024‑vintage private company with RMB 50m registered capital and a 55% controlling Hainan LP. Western investors’ default “China = subsidy = not real” filter does not apply here.
2) <12 months from incorporation to vessel delivery. Founded August 7, 2024, → vessel handed over July 2025. Even if we (charitably) assume the engineering work started before the corporate wrapper was set up, the execution velocity is in a different universe to Western aquaculture.
3) Industrial partners and state-class yard capacity, but market intent. The conversion was done by CSSC’s Shanhaiguan Shipbuilding with support from CSSC research institutes—China’s shipbuilding machine is now aimed at food. That still doesn’t make the owner an SOE; it means private owners can rent state industrial scale.
4) ≤70% cheaper per m³ than newbuild, says the yard/officials. Whether that precise percentage holds after a few more hulls is almost beside the point: the cost direction is violently down, and the speed is violently up.
**5) Three capesize conversions are already in the queue. That’s programmatic scaling, not a “look what we can do” demo. It is exactly how China has rolled through other industries: prove the template, then multiply it.
Stack that next to the Western counter‑examples
I’m not picking on these companies; they’re the best-case Western efforts—and that’s the point.
Andfjord Salmon (Norway)
Blended CAPEX per kg jumped from NOK 105 to NOK 115 just since Q4 2024 / Q1 2025, driven by concrete and weather. The company had to raise NOK 400m more equity to cope. Result: the cost floor is rising, not falling.
Salmon Evolution (Norway / South Korea)
Phase 2 at Indre Harøy now carries an investment cost of up to NOK 2.5bn (Q1 2025). Even if you use legacy sell‑side/BCG guidance of ~€20/kg HOG for the first 18k mt the direction of travel is clear: civil works inflation + time are eating the thesis.
Atlantic Sapphire (USA)
Still raising capital and optimizing Phase 1 / building Phase 2 to reach profitable scale years after groundbreaking. The company’s own materials stress the need to cut OPEX $1–2/kg and invest more to unlock “practical capacity.” Translation: the ramp is long and expensive.
Put differently: Western land‑based and regulated near‑shore projects are moving up the cost curve and stretching timelines, while China just moved down the cost curve and compressed timelines—with private money.
Senhai MK vessel launch July 20 - 22, 2025
The bottom line
A year‑old, privately financed Chinese company just did—in under a year—what Western salmon has been telling the market is basically impossible without multi‑year permits, billion‑kroner budgets, and government shields. The story underpinning high long‑term salmon prices was always that scaling is capital intensive and slow. Senhai MK just showed it doesn’t have to be.
You can debate whether they’ll really hit 2,800 t/year, or whether 70% cheaper/m³ survives inflation, or whether biology cooperates at scale. You cannot debate speed, intent, and capital structure, they’re on record. And the three capesize conversions tell you everything you need to know about where this goes next.