Floating fish hospital ready for market
Helixir is a barge equipped to combat sea lice in an environmentally friendly manner. The process should reduce the quantities of medication used by 90-98 per cent, while allowing both lice and chemicals to be collected to limit the environmental impact of treatments.
"I guess we're ready for the market within a month or so," the managing director of the Norwegian company Stranda Prolog, Klaus Hoseth, told kyst.no.
Hoseth added that the company had worked closely with a salmon producing partner, Måsøval Fiskeoppdrett, to develop Helixir.
"We began testing Helixir together with Måsøval Fiskeoppdrett. The verification of the main characteristics are expected to be finalized this year," he explains.
"We have many inquiries both from home and abroad, but we are not ready to sell yet. We assume that we will be ready to sell within a month. The price of Helixir will depend on the equipment package. But it will probably be 35 million NOK (£2.77m) and upward," says Hoseth.
Awards double
Stranda Prolog received the Nor-Fishing Foundation's Innovation Prize 2015 in August this year, winning 100,000 NOK (£7,903) in the process.
This success was compounded last week, when the county of Møre og Romsdal presented the company with its annual Environmental Award.
