Subsea Meets Aquaculture

GCE Subsea, NCE Seafood Innovation and Deloitte are running a project to explore the crossover potential between oil and gas and aquaculture, and funding for phase 2 is now secured through a grant from Hordaland County in Norway.

In phase 1 of the project, the main challenges of the aquaculture industry were reviewed and matched with competence and solutions from the offshore oil and gas industry, in order to identify possible areas of innovation.

Some of the potential areas for crossover that were identified were control and instrumentation systems, remote control, sensor technology, advanced image recognition, data acquisition and analysis, tracking systems, environmental survey, piping and valves, surface protection and anti-corrosion, marine operations, diving and ROV support, anchoring, materials and more.

One creative thought proposed was: Would it be possible to mark every fish with radio-frequency identification (RFID) for counting, tracking and analysis?

In Phase 2, the project will proceed to focus on some of the most potent areas for crossover and set up a series of networking events. Possible solutions will be prioritized for further development with a view to initiate several research and development projects.

A long coastline with cold, clear water makes the Norwegian coastline well suited for aquaculture. Today, Norway is the world's largest producer of Atlantic salmon.