Nordlaks Norway's largest privately owned salmon farmer, is investing NOK 400 million (€35.2 million/$38.6 million) in expanding one of its three smolt facilities.
The facility, which consists of eight land-based flow-through tanks in Lofoten, Norway, will have a new 6,000 square meter recirculating aquaculture system added, along with a new dam, quay and associated road.
The facility is currently supplied with fry from Nordlaks' hatchery in Innhavet, Norway, but when the new investment is completed, the Lofoten site will have its own hatchery and starter feed, which will also strengthen biosecurity at the facility, said a Nordlaks spokesperson.
Director of Nordlak's smolt operations, Oivind Skjevling, said it is part of the company's strategy to bet on larger smolt, and the expansion gives the opportunity to considerably increase production in at the site.
"The fact that we can produce larger smolt on land makes it possible to operate even more sustainably," said Skjevling, emphasizing that larger smolt reduce the time the fish are in the sea, reducing their exposure to lice and disease.
Nordlaks plans to have the facility fully operational in the fall of 2025.
"We have said all along that we will not stop investing, but do what we can to develop and restart as many projects as possible, but we had to make sure that it was financially viable after the ground rent tax," Heidi Torkildson Ryste, head of marketing and communications at Nordlaks, told IntraFish.
Ryste said Nordlaks has many projects it wants to start, but the company must prioritize what makes the most sense.
In August, Nordlaks said it was expecting its tax payments to increase by as much as threefold in the coming years as a result of the newly introduced ground rent tax on aquaculture in the country.
Nordlaks paid NOK 265 million (€23 million/$25.1 million) in taxes on ordinary income in 2022 and expects a two to threefold increase on this figure in the years to come, said Nordlaks CEO Eirik Welde.
There are still several uncertainties regarding the resource rent tax. The proposal carries a high risk of having to pay tax on income that has not been earned, the company said.
"Salmon is compared to petroleum, where price advice has been introduced, but salmon is not a uniform product like petroleum," said Welde. "The price of salmon is determined by far more factors, such as quality, size, certification, and production area."
The company posted an increase in both production and financial results in 2022 and is in the process of completing investments worth approximately NOK 1.4 billion (€121.4 million/$132.6 million).
