SalMar Aker Ocean has bought Arctic Offshore Farming from SalMar, the company has announced.
SalMar acquired Tromso-based Arctic Offshore Farming (AOF) as part of its merger with Norway Royal Salmon in 2022, but announced it intended to merge AOF into its joint venture with Aker in September this year.
The deal has now been formalised, with SalMar Aker Ocean acquiring 100% of AOF shares.
AOF was originally Norway Royal Salmon's ambitious offshore project. The project suffered delays due to the coronavirus pandemic, but secured 8 concessions from Norwegian authorities for offshore aquaculture development and launched the first of its sea cages in 2021.
By adding AOF to its portfolio of companies, SalMar Aker Ocean has further consolidated its dominance in offshore and exposed aquaculture in Norway, and takes its tally of companies up to 4, including SalMar Aker Ocean itself.
The group has a variety of projects underway, both far out to sea and in coastal areas exposed to harsh weather conditions. Perhaps the most well-known of these is Ocean Farm 1, owned by SalMar Aker Ocean company Ocean Farming AS, which operates in Frohavet.
SalMar Aker Ocean also owns Mariculture AS, which has been assigned a location and 8 development concessions in the Norwegian Sea.
"We are very pleased that SalMar Aker Ocean is now the company with the widest experience in exposed salmon farming with two different concepts," said SalMar Aker Ocean managing director Roy Reite.
"This gives us valuable knowledge for the further development of aquaculture in exposed areas."
Announcing the takeover, SalMar Aker Ocean said it has already built up unique operational experience through employees working with Ocean Farm 1 and the two units in Arctic Offshore Farming.
"This provides a good foundation for continuous improvement and development in order to be able to use new sea areas to produce food in a sustainable way," the company said.
SalMar Aker Ocean uses new technology to be able to produce salmon in areas that are currently not accessible using traditional farming technology.
The company recently signed an agreement with technology firm ABB to operate digital services at its AOF facility.
The partnership will deploy proprietary ABB technology to collect real-time and historical operational data from individual fish farms and distribute it securely to SalMar’s cloud-based database.
