Farstad AHTS’ Land Offshore Fish Farm Contract

File photo: Farstad

Norwegian offshore company Farstad Shipping announced it has picked up an aquaculture contract for its AHTS vessels.

The company said Friday it was awarded a contract from Ocean Farming AS, a subsidiary of SalMar Group, for the complete mooring installation and hook-up of Ocean Farming’s Semi-submersible Offshore Fish Farm.

The scope of the project involves project management as well as execution of the offshore operations utilizing AHTS vessels from the Farstad Shipping fleet trading the spot market in the North Sea.

Operations are scheduled to take place during first half of 2017.

“Within the company, we have an extensive track record and knowledge base related to offshore mooring and hook-up operations, and this has been key factors enabling us to secure this contract,” says Karl-Johan Bakken, CEO of Farstad Shipping ASA. “We highly appreciate Ocean Farming’s confidence in Farstad Shipping as demonstrated by the award of this interesting contract in this new market segment.”

The commercial terms of the agreement will be kept private and confidential between the parties.

Farstad is the latest offshore company to turn to aquaculture industry to pick up work amid the slowdown in oil and gas. 

In June Ocean Farming announced it was developing the world’s first semi-submersible fish farm rig designed to move operations further offshore where environmental conditions are best suited for the growth of fish stocks. The fish farm rig will be designed by Global Maritime in Norway and is said to be heavily influenced by technologies used in the offshore oil and gas industry.

“The introduction of Offshore fish farms of this size and specification is also opening a new market for utilization of large AHTS vessels and we are excited to take part in making this first pilot a success, and look forward to further developments in this market,” Bakken concludes.

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