Ground-breaking ceremony at Bue's site in Lutelandet, Norway, including the Mayor of Fjaler, Leif Jarle Espedal, Bue chief executive Knut Eikeland, and new Director of Development, Terje Simmenes.
Photo: Nytta AS / Bue
Bue Salmon has announced that preparatory groundworks have formally begun at its site on the island of Lutelandet in western Norway, marking an early milestone in the development of the company's planned land-based salmon farming facility.
The first detonation heralding the official start of blasting operations on the site was carried out on 6 January, with the Mayor of Fjaler, Leif Jarle Espedal, and Bue chief executive Knut Eikeland jointly initiating the works.
The commencement of works followed approval from the municipality shortly before Christmas, allowing soil removal to begin, with the early works enabled through a collaboration agreement with mining and quarrying firm Kvantum AS, signed in autumn 2025. Under the agreement, Kvantum is responsible for the extraction, processing and sale of rock materials from Lutelandet to the European market.
“Today marks an important step forward in this collaboration,” Eikeland said. “We are now physically underway at Lutelandet. This allows Kvantum to extract the rock, process it to customer specifications and ship it onwards for sale in the international market. The plan is for the first vessels carrying rock to depart from the dock here within the first quarter.”
Kvantum manages the full value chain from extraction to sale, and a significant share of the volumes is already allocated to established customers in Europe, the partners said. The company has previously been involved in large-scale developments such as the Skipavika terminal and industrial park in Vestland, Norway, where more than 20 million cubic metres of material have been extracted.
According to Bue, the agreement is expected to shorten the overall construction timeline and reduce initial capital expenditure. It also allows groundworks to proceed in parallel with other key processes, including financing and establishing the power supply. Once construction of the farming facility itself begins, the estimated build time is around two years, the company said.
Bue has also recently strengthened its project organisation, with Terje Simmenes taking up the role of Director of Development a few days before the groundbreaking ceremony. Simmenes was formerly Project Director for the Bergen Light Rail, and is "well acquainted with tight schedules and complex projects," the company said.
“It’s a bit like jumping onto a train already in motion,” Simmenes said, commenting on his new role.
Founded in 2015, Bue operates a pilot land-based facility in Bulandet, an island group off the coast of western Norway, for 1,400 tonnes of post-smolt and market-size fish, and licences for total production of 5,500 tonnes.
According to one of its major investors, Aquaculture Innovation, which owns approximately 25% of the company, Bue stocked the facility with its first smolt in 2022, and has supplied postsmolt to Mowi, Bremnes Seashore and Flokenes Fiskefarm. In early 2025, Bue Salmon also signed an agreement with Bolaks Group for a three-year smolt supply from Sævareid Fiskeanlegg, with smolt transferred to Bue’s land-based facility in Bulandet before delivery as post-smolt to Bolaks’ sea sites.
The planned Lutelandet facility represents a significant expansion for Bue, with the company targeting long-term annual production of around 50,000 to 60,000 tonnes, which the company claims will make it Norway's largest land-based salmon farming facility.
Lutelandet, an island located in Vestland on the western coast of Norway, is being developed as a green industry hub with access to North Sea Deepwater port and clean renewable energy from hydropower and adjacent wind farms. The site is also home to Europe's largest dry dock, according to its developers, Lutelandet Offshore.
Other companies developing facilities there include HTWO-Fuel AS, which aims to make hydrogen available as fuel for maritime shipping traffic along the west coast of Norway and produce green ammonia, and Green Steel, which intends to produce steel pellets for ultra low CO2 steel based on hydrogen.