GERMAN WHALERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 267, 1 February 1928, Page 3

GERMAN WHALERS

NEW COMPANY FORMED MODERN METHODS USED Norwegian, Chilean and English concerns now practically controlling the whaling business in the Southern Arctic Ocean, will soon face heavy German competition. A large company now in the process of organisation, and said to be financed by a big steamship company, intends to enter this profitable field in the near future. •Its operations will be carried on by the most modern methods. Factory ‘steamers of 20,000 tons are to serve as bases for smaller hunting vessels. The large steamers will be able to produce from 1.000 to 1.500 barrels of oil a day, and they will utilise on the spot every other part of the captured whales. This means an enormous saving in comparison with the older methods. Norway, which has used factory ships for some time, in the last few years has obtained oil valued at an average of 80,000,000 kroners (about £5,000,000) yearly, besides great quantities of whalebone, bonemeal and other valuable by-products. Last year 50,000 kilograms (about 100.0001 b.) of whale meat also were brought to Europe in a frozen state and readily marketed. It is planned that the new industry *iU form an important economic factor in Germany. The country now imP°rts great quantities of whale oil for the manufacture of margarine, soaps *ncl pharmaceutical and cosmetic preparations. The profit in modern whaling is illustrated by the .fact that a small Norwegian company with a capital of 1.000,000 kroners is able to distribute dividends amounting to 23,000,000 kroners in the past 20 years. • The capital required by the German whaling fleet at the outset is estimated Jt from 8,000,000 to 10,000,000 marks, “will be raised at home, but it is poss,b3e that an agreement with Norway and England amounting to a trust mav 06 concluded.