Denmark's exportation of fish

Denmark is a leading exporter of fish in Europe. The country is also a leader in wind-energy use and technological advances and the production of wind turbines. Chalk and limestone cover a majority of the landscape. The chalk cliffs of Møn Island and several limestone caves are key tourist sites. The energy surplus that allowed the export of natural gas and oil brought billions of dollars into Denmark’s economy.

The Country

Denmark became a state during the tenth century and a constitutional monarchy in 1849. Its citizens often rank as the happiest in the world in global surveys, and the country is the second most peaceful in the world. Denmark is located on the Jutland Peninsula in northern Europe. It borders the Baltic and North Seas and Germany to the south. Sweden is located to the northeast. The country also includes the islands of Fyn, Sjælland, and several other smaller ones. Its position gives it control of the Danish Straits, which link the Baltic and North Seas. Denmark is a low-lying nation, prone to flooding, that is protected from the sea by a series of dikes. The elevation of the country ranges from 171 meters above sea level to 7 meters below sea level. Denmark is a pioneer in harnessing energy from wind power, combating the country’s air pollution problem. Nearly one-quarter of the population lived in the capital city of Copenhagen in 2018. Denmark joined the European Union in 1973 but did not adopt the euro as its currency. Denmark’s standard of living and per-capita gross national product are among the world’s highest. The country is also a welfare state, leading the world in income equality. Among Denmark’s top resources are limestone, chalk, natural gas, petroleum, and salt.

Fish

Surrounded by water, Denmark has a long history with the fishing industry. A wide range of fish are found off the shores of Denmark, including haddock, mackerel, cod, and trout. The town of Skagen, in the northern tip of Denmark, is famous for its sea fishing. A local museum is dedicated to the history of the town and the fishing industry. Pike and trout are found in the country’s rivers, lakes, and estuaries. Organic fish farms can be found throughout the country and are highly regulated by the Danish government. The organic fish farms cannot use feed containing genetically modified organisms or colorants, cannot treat fish with medicine more than once in their lives, and cannot harm predatory animals that might affect the fish population. In order to protect the fish from attackers, the farms are usually enclosed using a fine mesh or bird nets.

Denmark has historically been one of the world’s top fish and seafood products, with the majority of the exports consumed within Europe. The country also has a number of fish-processing companies which produce products with imported and domestically caught fish, but those exports are not as high. Most processed fish is made with herring, mackerel, or cod. Between 1983 and 1998, the amount of fresh fish and filets exported from Denmark doubled. Because of this large increase, the processed fish industry relied more heavily on imports. The four main imports are herring (from Norway), trout, salmon, and shrimp. The industry produces a wide variety of products that are frozen, canned (mostly herring, mackerel, and blue mussels), smoked, pickled, and marinated. Most meat and oil processing is done in the northern and western portions of the country, with mackerel and herring mainly processed in the north. Amanda Seafood, established in 1916, was among the first makers of Danish canned fish. During the mid-1950s, the company introduced a line of pressed cod roe in cans. The Lykkeberg company was founded by Peter Lykkeberg in 1899 to produce “semi-preserved” herring. The company remained in business in 2023, known globally for the quality of its herring. Fish and seafood exports accounted for 3.1 billion euros in 2020. In the fifteen years following 1983, exports increased from 634,900 metric tons to more than 1 million metric tons. By 2002, Denmark was exporting 1.03 million metric tons of fish. Danish fishermen caught 1.32 million metric tons of fish that year. From 2010 to 2022, the volume of production fluctuated between 450 and 520 thousand tonnes, with fish meal and oil accounting for about (60 percent), fresh filets (18 percent), salted and dried products (16 percent), and frozen filets (8 percent). The types of fish used in these products include herring (28 percent), salmon (25 percent), and cod (16 percent).

Natural Gas

Following the discovery of natural gas in Denmark’s region of the North Sea, the Danish government passed the Natural Gas Supply Planning Act in 1979. The first gas was pumped to shore five years later. The gas supply continued to grow until it was available nationwide by early in the 1990s. In 2002, natural gas accounted for 23 percent of Denmark’s energy consumption. At that time, the reserves in the North Sea were estimated to be enough to last for eighteen years. Between 2006 and 2007, Danish exports of natural gas rose by 60 percent to more than 4.5 billion cubic meters, ranking the country twenty-fourth in that category worldwide. Exports dropped still further to 2.192 billion cubic meters in 2015. Denmark has considered building a pipeline to Poland to import natural gas when its reserves in the North Sea begin to decline. Denmark’s increasing reliance on wind power helped increase the number of years the country can be energy self-sufficient, however. Denmark first had a surplus of oil and gas in 1995, a status that reversed by 2013 because of low domestic production. In 2007, exports of natural gas and oil amounted to 28.3 billion Danish kroner (about $5.4 billion); in 2016, Denmark exported refined oil valued at $1.99 billion, crude oil at $1.19 billion, and natural gas at $138 million, according to OEC data. In January 2017, Denmark’s estimated reserves of natural gas were 16.88 billion cubic meters, and in 2021, crude oil reserves were estimated at 441 million barrels. Additionally, the country exported approximately 56,500 barrels of oil per day in 2018 and exported 1.701 billion cubic meters of natural gas in 2020.

Oil

In 1973, Denmark relied on oil for 88.7 percent of its energy needs. By 2001, the country had lowered that to 45.8 percent. Oil production began in 1972, in the coastal waters surrounding the country. There are nineteen active oil-producing fields in Denmark. In January 2008, Denmark’s oil reserves were estimated to be 1.188 billion barrels, ranking it forty-seventh in that category worldwide; by 2017, the country's reserves dropped by more than half, down to 490.6 million barrels.

A study published in 2009 offered hope for increased Danish oil production. A group of researchers from the Nano-Science Center at the University of Copenhagen studied the rocks on the floor of the North Sea, mainly composed of chalk, which no study previously investigated in this capacity. They found that the areas that contained oil displayed drastically different surface qualities from those expected. The chalk was expected to repel the oil; instead, the scientists found that the oil stuck to it. Scientists were hopeful that these findings would lead to a new or better method of extracting oil from the North Sea and increased oil production. By 2015, researchers were able to utilize a process to disturb the equilibrium in the surface of the chalk to increase oil recovery by 8 percent OOIP.

Limestone

Much of Denmark is limestone. The Mønsted mine and quarry west of Viborg is the largest limestone mine in the world. The mine shut down in 1953 after one thousand years of mining. Limestone was initially of little use to the Danes, but this changed after the country converted to Christianity. Many churches were built using limestone, more than two thousand in two hundred years, greatly boosting the area’s economy. An underground furnace was also built to burn limestone; the result was used as a mortar. There are around 60 kilometers of underground caves of varying sizes and depths. Two kilometers of the mines are equipped with electricity and are open to the public. The mines include two underground lakes. There is a multimedia presentation that explains the history of limestone and the mines. Concerts are also held in some of the larger caves. The limestone caverns are the winter home to more than five thousand bats. The cool, steady conditions allow the Mønsted caves to be used to age 180 metric tons of cheese made by a local dairy.

The Daugbjerg mine is located 3 kilometers from the Mønsted mine. This mine is also open to the public, with candlelight tours giving tourists an idea about the working conditions of miners. These caves are where the legendary Jens Olesen, a Robin Hood-type criminal from the 1620s, hid from authorities. The mine also ages cheese and stores sausages and wines, all of which can be purchased on site. The Daugbjerg mine is home to the largest collection of bats, more than twelve thousand, in Denmark.

The Thingbæk mine was owned by Anders Bundgaard, a sculptor by trade. In 1936, the caves were converted into a sculptural museum. Limestone was mined there for generations, but the mine was not highly profitable. Most of the exhibits were Bundgaard’s own works of art, including plaster models of famous foreign pieces. He created the Emigration Cave, which features a number of reliefs that tell the story of those who moved to the United States. In 1969, plaster works of another artist, C. J. Bonnesen, were donated to the museum.

The rocky island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea also has a number of limestone caves, caverns, mines, and quarries. The largest cavern is 70 meters long and is located in the northern section of the island. Several other mines and quarries can be found throughout the country. Through the end of the twentieth century, Denmark still produced almost 1 million metric tons of agricultural and industrial limestone.

Chalk

Møns Klint, the cliffs of Møn, are a major tourist attraction along the eastern coast of the island of Møn in the Baltic Sea. The cliffs are bright white and composed of chalk. They cover 8 kilometers along the coast of the island. Some of the cliffs have a steep drop of 120 meters from the top to sea level. The cliffs and surrounding land are protected as part of a natural reserve. Tourists who visit the cliffs enjoy walking and cycling along the many marked trails throughout the nature reserve. In 2007, a museum was opened near the top of the cliffs that focuses on the geological history of Denmark and the formation of the chalk cliffs.

The chalk formed from the shells of millions of microscopic sea creatures that were more than seventy million years old. Layers of chalk strata covered the seabed as the creatures died. Glaciers crossed Denmark during the last ice age, about sixteen thousand years ago. The glaciers moved westward across the area, putting the seabed under great pressure. The chalk strata were compacted and pushed upward in front of the slow-moving glacier. When the glacier retreated, the chalk cliffs of Møns remained. The cliffs of Rügen, Germany, across the Baltic, formed at the same time from the same deposits. The area is abundant with fossils of shellfish. The soil in the region is very chalky, which has led to the growth of a variety of rare plants, including several orchids. The soil conditions also give beech trees at the top of the cliffs a light-green hue, which the trees keep throughout the summer.

Because of the steepness of the cliffs and the qualities of chalk, landslides are a possibility. In 1952, at Røde Udfald a landslide created a peninsula that stretches 450 meters out into the ocean. In 1988, at Møns Klint, one of the landmark cliffs slid into the ocean. Several other landslides and rockslides have occurred. The worst landslide in fifty years on Møn was in 2007. Store Taleren (the big speaker)—417,200 metric tons of chalk, clay, and sand—fell into the ocean. The landslide created a peninsula that reached 300 meters into the Eastern Sea. A smaller rockslide that formed a peninsula 100 meters long occurred to the south less than six weeks later.

Wind Energy

Following the oil crisis of 1973, many Danes began to rally for cheaper, cleaner energy, other than nuclear power, which they felt was unsafe. The Nordic Folkecenter for Renewable Energy, the leader in developing commercial applications of wind and renewable energy sources, was founded in 1983. By the mid-1980s, the grassroots movement finally convinced the government to focus on non-oil energy sources. In 1988, the government set a goal of lowering carbon emissions by 22 percent by 2005. Typical wind speeds measured at 10 meters inland are 4.9 to 5.6 meters per second. Highest values are found in the western region of the country and on islands to the east. However, Denmark’s offshore regions have the highest wind speed capacities in Europe: 8.5 to 9 meters per second measured at an elevation of 50 meters.

In 1996, the Danish government began offering tax credits to citizens who either invested in wind-turbine collectives or purchased their own turbines. In 2004, reports showed that 86 percent of Danes were in favor of wind energy. The first offshore wind farm worldwide, Vindeby, was built by Denmark in 1991. The Middelgrunden offshore wind farm was the largest in the world when it was built in 2000. The farm consists of twenty turbines off the coast of Copenhagen. According to the Danish Energy Agency, by 2018, Denmark had an installed wind capacity of 1,271 megawatts across thirteen offshore wind farms, with another four under construction and four permitted. The existing wind farms produce a growing amount of Denmark’s electricity supply, rising from 12.1 percent in 2001 to nearly 33 percent in 2018. Denmark was the world's leader in manufacturing wind turbines in 2021, exporting approximately 90 percent of those produced, including the 9.5 MW, the most powerful serially-produced turbine, which has rotors about the size of ten parking spaces. Additionally, Denmark’s Kriegers Flak opened in 2021 as the largest wind farm in Scandinavia at the time, with the capability to power 600,000 homes.

Despite the high approval rating of wind energy among Danes, and the world’s growing desire to end its dependence on coal and oil, wind energy has a number of critics. Wind farms worldwide have killed tens of thousands of birds and bats, including many rare and endangered species. Other critics argue that the wind farms are actually doing more harm than good. Denmark had three power stations that utilized coal in 2017, each with planned timelines for stopping the use of coal: the Esbjerg Power Station by 2023, the facility in Nordjylland by 2028, and the station in Fyn by 2030. Some scientists argued that the wind farms actually increase carbon emissions because power plants are needed to back up the turbines in case of diminished wind speeds. Electricity produced by wind is among the lowest priced of renewable energies.

Other Resources

The production of salt is sometimes referred to as Denmark’s first industry. The island of Laesø has an abundance of salt, which was first produced there hundreds of years ago. Now the island is a popular tourist site. The Salt Center, the only salt-themed museum in Scandinavia, offers a variety of activities and exhibits. The center features the history of salt and the salt industry, a science lab for hands-on salt experiments, and a “Dead Sea” indoor pool where visitors can experience weightlessness.

Denmark also has a number of farming cooperatives and one of the world’s leading free-trade economies. The country produces barley, wheat, potatoes, and sugar beets. The Danish diet consists of fish, pork, cheese, and other dairy products. Most of Denmark’s agricultural trading partners are fellow European Union countries.

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