Rognvaldur Gudmundsson, general manager at the Icelandic arm of Norwegian closed-containment salmon farming specialist AkvaFuture, is leaving the company.

The Icelandic parliament passed a new law on fish farming in the spring of 2019 and because of the new regulations on issuing licences, AkvaFuture's work in Eyjafjordur in northern Iceland was put on hold.

"We still have not seen how or when the Icelandic authorities are going to be announcing the new licence round, so we have decided to put our Icelandic project on hold," Gudmundsson told IntraFish.

"How long that will last we have no idea."

In January 2019, Gudmundsson moved from Bronnoysund, Norway, where AkvaFuture is based, to Tromso, Norway.

"The plan for me was to continue working with AkvaFuture on various projects but the coronavirus made the already challenging commuting between those two places almost impossible," he said.

Beginning in September he will be joining the Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic as a project manager.

"I will be focusing on gathering, analyzing and presenting knowledge and data on the development of the sustainable economy related to the ocean, often called the Blue Economy," he said.

"I am very much looking forward to this new post, but at the same time sad that we did not succeed in our endeavors in Iceland."

Technology introduced by AkvaFuture features a completely contained salmon sea cage developed by parent company Akva Design for the full prevention of sea lice.

The technology has proved to be very successful and the company is producing salmon in closed sea pens without them being infected with sea lice, as well as gathering up large part of the waste that otherwise would be left in the sea.

The waste gathered is then a source for biodiesel or can be converted into fertilizer.

AkvaFuture operates farms at three locations in the Norwegian regions of Vevelstad and Bronnoy. AkvaFuture also has an Icelandic subsidiary working on developing that country's salmon farming industry as well.