A subsidiary of BLRT Grupp – Marketex Marine – has built and handed over to its long-term partner, a Norwegian world-leading company AKVA group, a unique fish farming barge weighing about 800 tons. The end customer of the barge is Norway Royal Salmon, a Norwegian company specializing in offshore aquaculture technology.

“The fish farming barge handed over to the customer is 64.8 meters long, 12 meters wide and has a silo capacity of 800 metric tons. It is also equipped with a unique hybrid feeding system.   The feed can enter the cages directly under water, this technology is called waterbone feeding and is more environmentally friendly with extremely low energy consumption compared to air transport of the feed. Tests carried out during the development of the feeding system with waterborne transport of the feed showed an energy reduction of as much as 70-90 per cent compared with air transport. In addition, the barge retains the option of surface fish feeding – the customer will be able to select which system to use at the moment for more efficient feeding,” explains Dmitry Gornostaev, Member of the Board of Marketex Marine.

“Our cooperation with Marketex Marine has been going on for over 10 years, but this project is a real breakthrough in the aquaculture industry. The constructed barge is the largest and most high-tech, it is equipped with such equipment that we could only dream of a few years ago. The barge will be placed in an offshore zone and will therefore be equipped with a roll and pitch control system and with AKVA group’s specialized V-shape hull. The increased classification will allow it to withstand exposed weather and rough conditions at sea,” says Per Andreas Hjetland, CCO of AKVA group.

The constructed barge will operate on the open sea and is designed to service a new, specially designed type of cages that will be submerged to a depth of 6-8 meters. Such cages will help prevent fish diseases caused by pathogenic microorganisms that live in the surface layers of water bodies.

Over the past 15 years, Marketex Marine has built more than 350 barges for the fish farming industry, which are successfully operating all over the world: from Japan to Chile and from Norway to Greece. For the small shipbuilding and fish farming markets, Marketex Marine offers turnkey solutions – from barge design to handover of the ready product to the customer. The company is a leader in the construction of steel fishing barges.