On Wednesday afternoon, FishGLOBE’s concept of a floating closed post-smolt facility became a reality.
The futuristic-looking structure was lifted to sea in Bamble, South East Norway, by the lifting vessel “Taklift”.
The closed farming globe, made from polyethene (PE) is 22m wide, 17m high and has a volume of 3,500m3 which can hold 250 tonnes of salmon. Uponor Infra was the company responsible for the construction of the globe at the ØPD Group yard in Bramble.
FishGLOBE founder and head of product development Arne Berge said he was very pleased with the work done by Uponor Infra and their subcontractors.
When SalmonBusiness visited Bamble in March this year, Berge said that no engineers thought it was possible to build FishGLOBE from PE plastic.
First smolt
“200,000 smolt of 100 grams will be put into the plant in October. They are expected to grow to be one kilogram until April 2020,” said FishGLOBE CEO Tor Hellestøl.
The plan is to have two cycles a year in the post-smolt globe, with annual appointments in April and October.
FishGLOBE’s customer is RyFish who now gets the first of a total of three globes to be included as part of the R&F license RyFish has. The post-smolt globe will be operated by Grieg Seafood Rogaland.
New standard
The concept has been developed over several years and the team said it was proud to see the new facility floating on the sea for the first time.
“The post-smolt globe sets a new standard for closed fish farming in the sea. The globe is completely autonomous with an integrated feed barge. This means that all technical equipment needed to operate the globe is installed in four technical rooms at the top of the globe,” said Hellestøl.
FishGLOBE “v5” will now be towed from Bamble to the Lysefjord, South Western Norway, where the installation work of technical equipment will be completed before testing of the globe will be carried out from the first half of August until the first full introduction of smolt which will be in October.
