De Maas's huge Chinese offshore fish farm nearly ready for stocking
"A fair number of challenges have had to be overcome to make this first unit a success."
The final installation of a huge Chinese offshore fish farm built by Netherlands-based oil and gas engineering firm De Maas off China's southeastern coast has been completed.
The semi-submersible "Spar Fish Farm" (SSFF) is the first of its kind to be installed at an open-ocean location exposed to tropical storms, according to an announcement by De Maas Founder and CEO Philip Schreven.
The farm will be ready for stocking after completion of ballasting trials and the commissioning of other marine systems need to operate the farm.
The Chinese producer is planning to gradually stock the unit with large yellow croaker, a popular species in the domestic Chinese market.
Traditionally a wild-caught species, near-shore croaker farming took hold in China in the 1980s. But as intensity grew, quality progressively dropped, and along with it the price and value of the industry fell.
Part of that investment is a series of offshore farms for more sustainable and better quality production.
Unchartered territory
The SSFF design is performing as expected and, with a seven-point mooring, provides "excellent stability under all conditions," ranging from in-maintenance mode, with the entire cage out of the water, to storm mode, with the entire cage submerged well below the turbulent top layer of the sea, according to Schreven.
“A fair number of challenges have had to be overcome to make this first unit a success," he said. "This was uncharted territory to all, and without the hard work and dedication of all stakeholders in the project this milestone would not have been achieved.”
The current farm has a capacity of 150,000 cubic meters and is installed at a fully exposed open-ocean location 45 nautical miles off the coast of the Fujian Province on China's southeast coast.
"The capital cost of our farm is more than 60 percent below the likes of the Ocean Farm 1 and Havfarm," added Project Manager Niels Haakman.
"We believe this reduced cost is key to getting offshore farming established outside of Norway and outside of niche species."
New offshore aquaculture company forms
The completion also marks the launch of a new company, Pan Ocean Aquaculture, set up by De Maas's founders in the Netherlands. The company is headed up by Haakman.
De Maas will continue looking after construction, while Pan Ocean will focus on marketing and sales as well as delivery and further developing intellectual property through research and development.
Apart from additional units for the Chinese market, Pan Ocean is engaged in discussions for units of sizes ranging from 100,000 cubic meters to 400,000 cubic meters in the Americas, Oceania and Europe for offshore grow out of salmon, cobia and various kinds of seriola.
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