The location of Marine Harvest Scotland’s first feed plant is likely to be revealed “within the next month”, according to the company’s new MD, Ben Hadfield.
Marine Harvest’s new MD Ben Hadfield, has revealed that the company’s new $121 million plant will be “centrally located on the west coast of Scotland to provide easy access to salmon farms on the west coast of the Highlands, Argyll and Bute and the Western Isles”.
The site needs to be a minimum of four acres and to have direct access to an existing jetty or pier, or offer the potential for one to be built, to enable feed to be delivered by boat to the farms.
After opening and operating a large feed plant at Bjugn in Norway, Marine Harvest hope to replicate their success in Scotland, where the plant will also produce feed for use in the company’s farms in Ireland, Norway and the Faroes.
The plant will create 55 full time jobs as well as significant employment in related service industries. Further jobs will also be created during construction of the plant which will take between a year and eighteen months.
“This is a large investment in Scotland and should be welcome news for the host community given the number of jobs,” said Hadfield, who is also Chief Operating Officer Feed for Marine Harvest globally.
“This plant will allow us to meet our aspirations on sustainability, as well as learn from our experience at the Norwegian plant. For example, it will use liquid natural gas for most of its energy, providing a much reduced carbon footprint over current arrangements. What we have done in Norway has created jobs directly in the local community and also generated employment for local contractors and suppliers.
“We are in discussions with the owners of a number of sites and are seeking the views of local regulators as well as Highlands and Islands Enterprise and hope to be in a position to make a final decision on a preferred site within the next month,” he said.
The plant could be up and running as early as 2018, depending on the length of time taken in the planning process.
