Sheridan, Wyoming, U.S.A.-based Aquabanq plans to build a land-based recirculating aquaculture system (RAS) growing salmon in the Northeast U.S. state of Maine.
Aquabanq, the U.S. subsidiary of United Kingdom-based Aquaculture Management and Holding Co., announced in March 2018 it was planning to open a new land-based salmon farm on an accelerated schedule.
According to a company press release, it has chosen a site in Millinocket, Maine “after two years of development, planning, and preparations.” The location will be the former Great Northern Paper Co. mill site in Millinocket, which closed in 2008. A company representative declined to disclose whether Aquabanq has secured the land on which it will build or where exactly the facility would be located on the property, according to The Free Press of Rockland, Maine.
CEO A.J. Shapiro, in an email to The Free Press, declined to say exactly where the facility would be located on the former mill property and if Aquabanq has secured the land, saying more information would be disclosed later.
The project has a planned project completion date of 2022, at which time Aquabanq hopes to be producing eight million pounds – 4,000 tons – of farmed Atlantic salmon annually.
“Use of proven RAS technology and advanced materials reduces both production cost and [capital expenditure] per pound of fish,” the company said. “Strong financial projections of our aquatic farm are driven by strong product demand, state-of-the-art technology, and prudent expenditure management.”
By 2025, Aquabanq hopes to scale the facility up to producing 22 million pounds of salmon annually, or 11,000 tons.
“The salmon from our facilities in Maine will reach consumer plates in Boston, Montreal, New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and everywhere in-between within hours of harvest to ensure peak freshness,” the company said. “Americans eat over 980 million pounds of salmon each year, most of it is imported from offshore farms in Chile, Canada, and Norway. We can and must do better! By raising our fish in modern recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) close to market, we seek to provide a smart resource of seafood with the smallest carbon footprint that is free from antibiotics, hormones, vaccines, and diseases.”
Aquabanq Managing Director AJ Shapiro previously said land-based salmon farming can now compete on level ground with net-pen aquaculture.
“We can easily compete with [open-pen] cage farming operators as our production costs are on a par at this point,” Shapiro said. “The fish in closed-containment systems are not exposed to parasites and pollutants like sea lice and plastic, and unlike our competitors, we can guarantee a year-round production."
Aquabanq champions sustainable farming practices, with the company’s production units “based on a flexible, proven closed-loop system with optimized process logistics, low operating costs and a reduced footprint that makes them perfect for large-scale, sustainable onshore fish-farming operations,” Shapiro said.
Aquaculture Management and Holding is also expanding in Europe, with the firm expecting to reach 10 million pounds of 5,000 MT of Atlantic salmon and steelhead production capacity by 2021.
