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AquaGen signs $18M deal with RAS supplier Artec Aqua

Salmon genetics company AquaGen of Norway is expanding Profunda, its land-based broodstock facility in Barstadvik in Ørsta municipality. The company has signed a contract with on-shore aquaculture company Artec Aqua to provide the recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) equipment for the US$18-million project.

Salmon breeding company AquaGen develops, produces and delivers genetic material to the global aquaculture farming industry.

The Norway-based Artec Aqua develops turnkey RAS and flowthrough system.

AquaGen acquired Profunda in 2017. It completed its first expansion phase with a new grow-out department in 2018. This quadrupled the company’s broodstock production capacity.

The company’s Profunda plant produces salmon from smolt of 100 g to broodstock of 12-15 kg.

“With the new expansion, Profunda will be a full-cycle facility for the production of land-based eggs; which means that the fish will have their entire lifecycle in the facility – from egg to egg,” according to a press release from AquaGen. “The facility will have a capacity to deliver between 80 and 100 million eggs per year.”

The facility in Barstadvik use the geological features of the area, with deposits of silt, sand and gravel “that have built up over the last 15,000 years, since the last ice age,” according to Frode Sætre, operations manager at Profunda.

Three generations of the breeding nucleus have been transferred to the site.

The latest expansion is expected to be completed in the spring of 2022.