Construction of RAS salmon farm will start before the New Year
Qingdao Conson is moving forward with the planned facility for 5,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon. The design contract has now been awarded, and the build is scheduled to start within months.
When LandbasedAQ reported on the project in August, the state-owned Chinese group Qingdao Conson Group was working on plans for a new land-based salmon farm in Qingdao West Coast New Area.
Since then, the project has moved closer to realisation.
In late August, Hu Xin, chairman of Qingdao Conson Blue Silicon Valley Development, told the Chinese newspaper Economic Observer that the 5,000-tonne project had recently been formally launched, and that construction was expected to begin by the end of the year.Have chosen a designer
According to Qingdao's public tender portal, the design contract was awarded on September 14 to a consortium consisting of Zhejiang University Urban-Rural Planning & Design Institute and Zhejiang University. The contract is worth 9.08 million yuan (£1.0 million).
The same design institute has already been involved in the project. In March, it was awarded the contract for the conceptual design of the industrial area, at the time worth 932,000 yuan.
However, the new contract goes significantly further and includes both phase one and phase two of the facility, from solution and preliminary design to finished working drawings.
In total, around 134,000 square metres of building space is planned, divided into approximately 38,000 square metres in the first phase and 96,000 square metres in the second phase.
Will also design the RAS facility
The assignment does not only include the buildings. According to the tender documents, the consortium will also be responsible for the process design of the fish farming facility itself. This includes raw water treatment and seawater desalination, recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) for both juvenile and food fish, solutions for moving fish between production stages, wastewater treatment, as well as automation and digital systems. The RAS supplier that will ultimately get the job has not yet been selected.
60% will be financed by loans
The new tender documents also provide more information about how the project will be financed.
The total investment is still stated at 920 million yuan, equivalent to around £102m. Financing is planned with 40% equity and 60% bank loans.
Construction and installation investments are estimated at around 537.5m yuan. Of this, 241.8m yuan is related to the actual farming processes, while 295.7m yuan is for buildings and other structures.
The design assignment has a stated period of 540 calendar days.
Part of a larger salmon initiative
Qingdao authorities describe the onshore facility as an important part of the effort to establish a complete salmon value chain in the region. In May, construction began on a dedicated salmon genetics and breeding centre in the same area. The project, with an investment of 150m yuan, will focus on Atlantic salmon breeding and production of ova, and fry.
Conson has also established production of Atlantic salmon on board its large fish farming ships. The company describes the strategy as a combination of land-based production and sea-based farming, with the aim of controlling a larger part of the value chain from genetics and fry to farming, processing, cold chain, and sales.
The new onshore facility will be built at Caojialiu in Langya Town, between Binhai Avenue and the coast southwest of Qingdao.
If the schedule holds, the first physical construction work should begin before the end of the year.
