Production strategies in offshore salmon aquaculture

As coastal aquaculture production faces growth constraints due to disease pressure and environmental impacts, offshore aquaculture has emerged as a potential pathway for continued expansion. Reduced user conflicts, greater separation from inshore disease sources, and opportunities for large-scale production motivate this shift. However, offshore locations also entail higher logistical and operational complexity. This paper provides a comparative economic analysis of alternative offshore salmon production strategies and examines how production scale, capital utilization, and environmental constraints affect investment performance. In particular, we show that upfront capital expenditures (CAPEX) and capacity utilization are the main factors in determining profitability. The results highlight capital intensity, biomass utilization, and production design as key drivers of economic feasibility and demonstrate that offshore production strategies have direct implications for smolt production systems and long-term investment decisions.