Ancora Chile

ANCORA CHILE

TAKING CHILE’S TECHNICAL SERVICES TO NEW HEIGHTS

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TAKING CHILE’S TECHNICAL SERVICES TO NEW HEIGHTS

Ancora Chile has become one of the mainstays of the support sector enabling the country’s aquaculture industry, primarily salmon, to continue meeting international demands. Now offering a diversified approach, the company represents 15 global brands, offering an unmatched service at a local level. Report by Andy Probert.

Ancora Chile may have been operational as an independent technical company since 2015, but it has more than three decades’ prior experience in delivering commercial services to the localised naval and fishing industries.

The workforce of 30 people represents 15 brands through its offices in Concepción and Puerto Montt, repairing and maintaining units such as azimuth systems, ship thrusters, gearboxes, transverse propellers, deck equipment, vacuum pumps, reverse osmosis plants, UV systems, sewage treatment plants and marine cranes amongst other equipment.

This multi-level, expert approach grew from a commercial department set up in the mid-1980s by Valdivia shipbuilder Astilleros y Servicios Navales (ASENAV),

primarily to serve the requirements of fishing vessel owners.

The commercial office rapidly expanded to cope with the economic boom of Chile’s fishing sector. By the 2000s, following the sector’s decline, the unit was based from a sole office and refocused on tugboat and ferry companies.

Further consolidation followed with a move from Talcahuano to Concepción, and a second office opened in 2006 in Puerto Montt to meet the demands of the aquaculture industry.

Top quality portfolio

In 2015 ASENAV's Commercial Division began to operate independently under the name of Ancora Ltd. It immediately took charge of all representations of global

equipment brands serving the aquaculture and naval industries, and projects related to the aquaculture industry.

Ancora’s portfolio now includes a number of leading brands including Schottel propulsion systems, Reintjes gearboxes, marine cranes, boats and davits from Palfinger Marine, CanaVac fish pumps, Hamann AG sewage plants, Norwater fresh water generation systems, Bernoulli water filtrations, Deepchill liquid ice, Samson liquid ring vacuum pumps, Stranda Prolog fishing pumping solutions, Ultraqua UV disinfection systems, Winteb vent heads and Steen deck equipment.

“Utilising the quality products of these brands, we offer a world-class platform of unrivaled services for clients,” emphasised Juan Pablo Gómez, Ancora’s General Manager.

Another element of the Ancora business model is delivering solutions tailored to the client’s specific needs, primarily to the aquaculture market. It has extensive experience in Tanktainer-to-plant unloading systems, Tanktainer loading systems from ships, and fish pumping systems.

For on-site and on-board harvesting systems, Ancora has developed modular transportable pumping systems, either to suck live fish over the side of culture cages or the side of a wellboat and unload them onto a harvesting table.

Ancora Chile’s dockside Tanktainer loading system enables a vacuum pump to suck harvested fish from ponds into a barge before being loaded onto two tank trucks.

The company also manufactures power packs with vacuum pumps, stainless drain

tanks for fish pumps, electrical power and control panels, and water backwash systems in wellboats.

Ancora Chile’s knowledge of black and grey water treatment systems allows its teams to offer a specialised technical service in physical-chemical treatment systems.

Success stories

In 2021, all the energies and experience of the Ancora team were combined to help the company supply and install part of a system for a primary salmon processing plant in the Puerto Natales area of southern Chile, which brought its turnover to a record compared to previous years.

In fact, one of the company’s main success stories of recent times was supplying Australis Seafoods, a Southern Chile-based company, with primary processing

plants from Norwegian-based Stranda Prolog. These include fish pumping systems, Helix ponds for fish cooling and bleeding, vacuum plants, sorting tables and dewaterers; essentially all high-tech equipment designed to promote the best hygiene standards and low environmental impact.

Mr Gómez said: “We continue to provide maintenance to 90% of the total equipment that we supply to clients in Chile, and are looking to provide these services to entities across South and Latin America as we have a lot of knowledge to offer.”

Ancora Chile also supplied a water treatment and purification system, the marine cranes, transverse thrusters, reactor UV and the fresh water generation system aboard the world’s first salmon processing vessel, the Owurkan, to treat common aquatic pests and diseases.

The ASENAV Shipyard-built vessel is equipped with a large reverse osmosis facility to provide 125 cbm of fresh water per hour for some treatments, and a continuous filtration system to remove sea lice.

Three years ago, another ASENAV build, the Magellan Explorer was developed specifically for Antarctic air-cruise operations, under the specifications of the Polar

Code. Ancora Chile supplied two Hamann sewage treatment plants; Palfinger marine cranes, boat davits and abandonment boats and a Reintjes reducing box.

With a capacity of 100 passengers, plus 60 crew, the Magellan Explorer has a Polar Ice Class PC6 classification, allowing it to navigate in frozen waters for long periods without calling at a port.

Essential partner

“It is with tremendous pride to have been part of these ground-breaking projects,” commented Mr Gómez. “We continue to work with clients, furthering their projects with the supply of world-class products represented by Ancora and to ensure their needs are always met.”

Meeting these demands is dependent on the company’s flexibility in overcoming the difficulties in meeting delivery time deadlines and supply chain issues, he said.

“Our competitors are generally global, but the supply of quality equipment into the aquaculture sector, for example, in Chile, generally comes down to Ancora Chile. That is a major advantage to us. We are global, but ultimately local, thanks to the experience and availability of our excellent technical service team here.

“This came to the fore during the pandemic as competitors who don’t have localised technical service units were hampered by travel limitations and flight restrictions. Clients increasingly turned to us to solve aftersales issues, warranty and service problems, and supply of spare parts.”

Mr Gómez concluded: “Clients see us as an essential partner. Undoubtedly, Ancora Chile’s representation of global brands has been a key and enduring factor in our successful business relationships for many years.” n

Juan Pablo Gómez Ancora’s General Manager