Work begins on Proximar's salmon RAS in Japan

The Israeli company is building the Atlantic salmon farm for Norway-based Proximar Seafood at a site near Mount Fuji which is less than two hours by road from Japan’s two largest cities, Tokyo and Yokohama.

The first phase of the facility will have an annual capacity of 5,300 tonnes (head on gutted).

Fully-integrated facility

AquaMaof said the facility will integrate the latest advancements in the company’s RAS technology, and will include a hatchery, nursery, and full grow-out areas, as well as management, operational and processing zones. Construction follows the successful completion of the design stage, in which AquaMaof had worked closely with the Proximar team since 2016.

Proximar has raised NOK 400 million (£34.4m) in fresh capital for its project in a private placement that aroused very strong interest from Norwegian, Nordic and international investors and companies, and was more than ten times oversubscribed.

Successful share offer

“We would like to congratulate the Proximar team on a successful IPO (share sale),” said AquaMaof chief executive David Hazut in a press release. “We are pleased and honoured to kick-off the construction stage and to continue to support the Proximar team on their visionary mission.”

Proximar chief executive Joachim Nielsen said: “We are excited with the commencement of the construction stage of our facility in Japan, together with AquaMaof as our technology partner for this project.

“We appreciate their continued support and are confident that this stage will be carried out at the same level of proficiency that characterised the design stage.”

First harvest in 2024

The RAS faciltiy is scheduled for completion in 2023, with the first harvest of salmon in the second quarter of 2024. Proximar is sourcing ova from Benchmark Iceland (formerly Stofnfiskur).

AquaMaof says its proprietary water-recycling techniques produce minimum discharge and require low power consumption.

The Proximar project is the latest of several projects currently under development by AquaMaof in Canada, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Chile, US and more, with a combined capacity of more than 65,000 tonnes.