The memorandum of understanding between the global marine engineering consultancy firm – which was involved with Nordlaks’ ground-breaking 385-metre Havfarm 1 and SalMar’s Ocean Farm 1 – and the Chinese organisation has been signed to jointly research and collaboratively develop technologies that enhance the development of offshore aquaculture. The scope of cooperation includes the research and development of equipment, engineering, fish farming and interrelated technologies relevant to offshore aquaculture.
“As the international aquaculture industry is looking to extend further offshore to develop and operate closed cage fish farms, our specialist marine and offshore engineering competence becomes more and more relevant for this industry. Partnering with a renowned research institute such as the ECSFRI-CAFS is a natural next step in our efforts to support the industrialisation and sustainability efforts of the aquaculture sector,” says Reuben Segal, chief operating officer of AqualisBraemar.
ECSFRI-CAFS is a world class fisheries research institute that over the past 60 years has made major contributions to the development of fishery sciences in China. Its fields of research include exploitation, utilization and management of fishery resources, fishery environment and assessment, fishing technique and fishery engineering, aquatic products processing and quality safety, aquaculture and enhancement, fishery remote sensing and fishery biological technology.
“The world’s rapidly growing population needs more proteins, and fish and seafood can provide this. To achieve this objective, the aquaculture sector must become even more sustainable, from a cost, environmental and fish health perspective. Our partnership with AqualisBraemar LOC will seek to solve some of these issues,” says Wang Lumin, vice-president of ECSFRI-CAFS.