Stavanger & Bergen, Norway; May 19 2017: Erko Seafood AS, a leading producer of high quality salmon and trout, and Global Maritime AS, a leading provider of engineering services to the offshore sector and an innovator in offshore fish farming, have developed a new concept for offshore salmon farming, called the «NORTH SEA FISH FARM». The concept plans to use a stationary base which will act as a fish farming platform and which will be located in the open sea.
The goal behind the concept is to move the fish farming of salmon out of the fjords, beyond the coastline areas, and into the open ocean where it can benefit from larger production areas and volumes. This innovative concept, that could change the way farming fish currently takes place, is completely different from all the other concepts that have applied for concessions from the Norwegian Fishery Directorate.
With this approach, Erko Seafood and Global Maritime believe that it is possible to achieve huge improvements in relation to the environmental challenges currently faced by fish farmers. The concept also varies greatly from today’s fish farming practices, and should see great advancements – especially in counteracting fish lice’s impact on wild salmon (as is the case in Norwegian fjords), and in the ability to greatly expand production areas and prevent contamination and runoff into the local environment.
A stationary platform, on the Norwegian continental shelf, located in the open sea will also be subject to extreme forces of nature. Therefore, a platform in such a location must have a solid, sound structure and be of a substantial size to withstand such forces.
Erko Seafood and Global Maritime have collaborated to bring forth this concept, following a feasibility workshop and study in Autumn 2016 and a conceptual study in 2017. The work includes structural design, geotechnical studies, general arrangement of the installation, fish welfare – including fish technical equipment, hydrodynamic analysis of environmental loads on the net and structure, risk analysis, safety analysis (including evaluation of legislation, transport method evaluation and assembly and installation), and the cost estimation of design, build and operations.