(Yicai Global) Nov. 18 -- Farmed marine products firm Zoneco Group has come under intense scrutiny after it announced another mysterious mass scallop die-off last week, even as other nearby aquaculture producers trumpeted a bumper harvest of the fan-shaped bivalve.

The announcement stunned the market as this is the third time in the five years that Zoneco has declared such a  catastrophic crash in its stocks. This latest revelation shucked the firm's stock [SHE:002069] of nearly 20 percent of its value last week, raising the specter of delisting, also once again.

Shares of the company, which was previously China's largest listed seafood firm by market cap, maintained their slide today, slumping as much as 4 percent in the morning to close 2 percent down at CNY2.45 (USD0.35).

The local agriculture bureau, which is the regulator in the port city of Dalian in Northeast China's Liaoning province that has jurisdiction over the area, deployed experts to conduct a sampling of the afflicted zone, the Beijing News reported today.

Spot tests showed that its scallop output is less than five kilograms per mu (0.067 of a hectare), a far cry from the standard of 20 kilograms in the extended archipelago that lies in the Yellow Sea between China's mainland and the two Koreas. The results of the experts' investigation will soon be forthcoming, per the report.

Prime Pickings

Residents of Haiyang Island, which sits a bit over 30 kilometers from Zhangzi Island, have had a good scallop harvest with nothing amiss. The bivalves cultivated on the two islands belong to the same species. A portion of Zoneco's scallop spats even came from Haiyang, a Zoneco worker said.

Inventory cost write-off and reserve for stock deprecation are expected to be CNY278 million (USD39.6 million), 90 percent of CNY307 million of book value as of the end of last month because of the mass mortality of its mollusks, of the reasons for which Zoneco claimed to be unaware in its statement last week.

The company has apparently now run out of alibis after claiming currents swept away its scallops in 2014 and that they starved to death in 2017, the Beijing News reported on Nov. 12.

Zoneco was formerly Zhangzidao Group but changed its name in 2016 to avert de-listing under bourse rules after logging two years of losses in a row, the Seafood Source reported online. Another name change may now be in the cards it seems.

Editor: Ben Armour