The Norwegian aquaculture industry has experienced rapid growth since its infancy in the 1970s. Norway is today the leading international producer of salmonids, the bulk of which is exported. The basis for this success has been a combination of favorable natural conditions, innovative business players, extensive research efforts, and government policies that have sought to balance conflicting considerations. In the same period, another key industry has also emerged in Norway, namely the oil and gas industry. Production commenced in the North Sea in the early 1970s, and today exploration and exploitation are carried out in both the North Sea, the Norwegian Sea, and the Barents Sea. The fish farming industry and the petroleum industry have largely developed independently of each other. Both industries have derived much of their dynamism from a close interaction with specialized suppliers, but there have been few links between the respective value chains.
After 2015, there has been a change. The aquaculture industry, which has traditionally been based on open water net-pen cages, encountered increasing sustainability challenges. This limited opportunities for further growth and spurred interest in developing alternative fish farming concepts. In the petroleum industry, the drop in oil prices in 2014 led to downsizing and spare capacity. Several of the supplier companies started looking for alternative markets. This meant that the aquaculture industry began to look towards the petroleum industry, and the petroleum industry began to look towards aquaculture. At the same time, the Norwegian authorities introduced a temporary scheme of development permits in the fish farming industry with the aim of triggering large-scale and innovative projects. In recent years, we have therefore seen the development of closed and semi-closed containment systems, submersible fish cases, and an increasing focus on both offshore and land-based aquaculture.
In this paper, we analyze these new links between the petroleum sector and the fish farming sector in Norway, and we provide an overview of some of the new aquaculture concepts that have been launched. Based on Arctic Offshore Farming, which is one of the projects granted development permits, we take a closer look at the technology transfer from petroleum to aquaculture, how technology and expertise from the oil and gas industry have been used in the context of fish farming, and what challenges the new cross-industry alliances may create with regard to, among other things, project management, costs, and the fit between technology and biology. The paper ends with a discussion of future perspectives for the Norwegian aquaculture industry.