SeaFood Business

MAY 2014

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Market Re port Visit us online at www.seafoodbusiness.com May 2014 SeaFood Business 13 Crab report season sees boat prices higher than last year, with catchers and processors agreeing to a fgure of CAD 2.30 ($2.09) a pound, up from CAD 1.90 ($1.73) last season. In- dustry ofcials have been quoted as saying the price is fair, and mirrors price increases seen in the Alaska opilio market. Te price increases will also help mitigate the efects of quota cuts to the Canadian catch. Early April prices for snow crab from New- foundland and the Gulf of St. Lawrence were ranging between $5.40 a pound and $6.70, depending on size. — SFB Staff Supply shortages pressure surimi prices Manufacturers cite lack of production in Southeast Asia P ricing pressure will continue to impact the global surimi mar- ket through the rest of this year and possibly into next. Buyers should expect to see price hikes between the just-ended A season and the up- coming B season. "Globally there is not a lot of supply," says an executive at one West Coast seafood company that specializes in su- rimi. Te executive sees B season surimi prices climbing between 7 and 9 percent from the A season prices. "Tere is pricing pressure in ev- ery market. It's not just Japan, it's the U.S. and Europe too." Te lack of supply comes despite reports of the best surimi vol- umes out of Alaska since 2006, when 76,200 tons were pro- cessed. As of the frst week of April, around 73,400 tons had been processed. Te A sea- son ends in early June. Te Bering Sea pollock TAC for 2014 is 1.26 million tons, of which 40 percent is allocated to the A season. Te production pres- sure is being caused by a lack of production of warmwater species from Southeast Asia used to make surimi. Te West Coast executive said he expects prices for golden threadfn bream out of Asia — where it is known as itoyori — to climb from around 380 yen ($3.74) to 400 yen ($3.94) a pound or more. PBO surimi blocks of Alaska pollock averaged about $2,950 a MT at the latter stages of the A season. Treadfn bream production has been "way of since the lat- ter half of 2013" with no improvement ex- pected this year, the executive said. Te lack of supply has created some unusual market conditions, including Tailand becoming for the frst time a net im- porter of surimi instead of a net exporter, the ex- ecutive said. Along with a decline in production, surimi prices were being im- pacted by a weakened yen, the currency in which surimi trades, as the weaker yen made it uneconomical for boats to go out and harvest. Whether these shortages and price in- creases carry over into 2015 will depend on whether supply comes back and how long it takes to rebound, and whether pollock and other species such as Pacifc whiting can fll the gap, the executive said. "I don't think it will fll the hole in 2014," he added. — SFB Staff Salmon report (Continued from page 12) surimi mackerel Bumper quota for NEA mackerel Long-awaited agreement upsets Iceland fshery offcials mackerel in the frst- quarter of this year was NOK 11.92 (€1.45/$2), which is NOK 2.23 (€0.27/$0.38) more than in Q1 2013. Chi- na, the Netherlands and Japan were Norway's biggest mackerel mar- kets during this period. Te value of Nor- way's mackerel exports in Q1 2014 increased by 40 percent, reach- ing NOK 661 million (€80.3 million/$111.2 million), despite a 14 percent increase in the volume exported. Norway exported 54,000 MT of mack- erel in the quarter with the Norwegian Sea- food Council claiming that the demand was good in several mar- kets. — Jason Holland T he new trilat- eral agreement on mackerel catch-share al- locations in the North- east Atlantic (NEA) has not ended the long-run- ning dispute over how much of the lucrative catch each coastal state should be entitled to, but there's little doubt that inter-state relations are more harmonious. In March, after more than four years of failed negotiations, the Eu- ropean Union (EU), Norway and the Faroe Islands agreed on a fve-year catch-share management plan. For the time being, Iceland remains outside of the agreement and it should be noted that upon its announcement Ice- landic fshery ofcials voiced their disproval about the allocations within the trilateral deal as well as the way it was brokered. Nevertheless, a strategy exists within the new plan should the country join at a later date that would give it access to an unallocated reserve amount of 15.6 percent of the total al- lowable catch (TAC). Meanwhile, the EU has 58.4 percent of the TAC, the Faroes has 14.93 percent and Nor- way has 26.67 percent. Te three parties have agreed to abide by these shares through 2018. Tere is good news on the way for the sec- tor as the International Council for the Explo- ration of the Sea is ex- pected to announce an increase in the mackerel TAC this month; the upward revision could be as high as 1.2 million metric tons (MT). Overall, mackerel prices so far this year are an improvement on those seen a year ago. For example, the aver- age price paid for Nor- wegian frozen whole Producers had a rough start to the year. Infectious salmon anemia (ISA) afected a farm in Chiloé and caused the National Fishing and Agricul- tural Service (Sernap- esca) to keep the area in emergency alert. Te precautions pre- vented the spread of the infection. Pablo Galileam, fshing sub-secretary at the time, said: "Tere is a program to control ISA, so we are in bet- ter condition to face an infection that will be always present in Chile, which already has seven or eight re- bounds a year and are kept under control." — Brewington & Co. 12_13MarketReport.indd 13 4/21/14 8:06 AM

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