Early June marked by uncertainty for salmon on Moscow's freshfrozen fish market

As per the first week of June 2009 trade in freshfrozen seafood in Moscow has shown mixed price trends, analysts of www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) concluded after analyzing the current situation on the market.

Among important events of the week, construction of a coldstore terminal in Leningrad Oblast (surrounding Saint Petersburg) has ended up for OceanProduct Holding with arrests on its capital and property due to the suits of BFA Bank, as reported by DP. Arbitrage of Saint Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast has admitted two suits from OAO Bank BFA to OOO OceanProduct and OOO Port-Kholod on collecting the total bank loan arrears of 113 million RUR. Under the suits the bank has called for the arrest on the defendant's capital and property and the court has satisfied the bank's suits.

Meanwhile, Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Rosselkhoznadzor has published lists of approved seafood processing plants of Australia and Bulgaria.

One week has passed since Canada has opened the hake season (Merluccius productus). According to the skippers, at present the bulk of harvested hake is of large size 800+. The biomass is fairly strong.

The quota for the hake fishery (Merluccius productus) in the northwest coast of the USA and Canada has been cut by 42% as compared to the quota 2008.

Russia's Pacific salmon season 2009 has taken off in Kamchatka on 1 June 2009. The fishermen of Ust-Kamchatsky district have been the first to start operations on the grounds in the peninsula's east. For the first time in the recent 15 years the season has begun so early with the fishery normally taking off on 6-10 June.

According to the Norwegian sources, despite high prices in the first quarter of 2009 the Norwegian export of salmon to Russia grew by 1% to 16,800 tonnes. Shipments of trout have increased nearly 6 times to 8900 tonnes.

By the middle of the closing ten days of May the average export price of fresh salmon from Norway has reached the level of NOK37.00 per kilo and amounted to ca.NOK37.35 per kilo with the price rising by more than NOK3.00 per kilo or in excess of 9% through the week. And during the four weeks of continuous growth it increased by more than 18%.

In spring months the positive trend of Norwegian salmon prices has evidently become the most noticeable development on the world market of salmon. In the meantime, in the beginning of February 2009 the trend was quite the opposite and in the second ten days of the month the prices reached the bottom descending much below NOK28.00 per kilo. Bouncing back from the bottom they started rising, though in March 2009 they only reached the level of NOK30.00 per kilo. Thus, the most active rise has been observed in April and May 2009. As compared to the lowest result the price level by the end of May has come up by 36% or approximately by NOK10.00 per kilo.

In general, as per the first week of June 2009 the market has been showing mixed price trends for finfish and non-finfish products. In particular, the market has displayed complete uncertainty for farmed Norwegian salmon and trout. There has been a certain decrease of prices for large sizes of mackerel, small herring and a slight continuous weakening of prices for pollock and capelin.