Proximar Seafood suffers a tank breach and biomass loss at its grow-out facility

Proximar Seafood AS experienced on Saturday a breach in one of four operational tanks at its new post-smolt grow-out facility. Consequently, it has suffered a loss of biomass. According to a preliminary estimate, 50,000 fish have been lost in the tank breach.

The company is investigating the incident and plans to improve all joints and sealings to prevent any future leakage. It confirmed that the total number of fish in the Proximar facility across all stages amounts to more than one million individuals.

Investigations conducted by Proximar show that leakage from the tank washed away soil beneath the tank resulting in a sudden breach. However, a part of the batch in the tank was saved and transferred to another production tank.

The costs associated with the improvements and treatment of the tanks are expected to be approximately NOK 5 million. On the other hand, the related ones dedicated to fixing the breached tank are expected to be approximately NOK 1 million.

Long-term harvest projections are still ongoing

According to a statement released by the company, the RAS technology at the post-smolt grow-out facility is showing good performance in terms of water treatment capacity and steady operations.

The fish are performing well across all the batches and no system-related issues have been experienced since the beginning of the production.

Proximar will start to harvest the first batches at the post-smolt grow-out facility in the third quarter of 2024. So, the breach will impact the harvest volumes in the fourth quarter of 2024.

As a precautionary measure to secure excess biomass needed to handle unexpected incidents like the one that just occurred, Proximar inserted a high number of eggs during the start-up phase.

Finally, Proximar has confirmed that the fish is healthy and in good shape and there was no escape of fish to the outside environment from the breach incident.