Impressive results of sales of Russian pollock roe in Busan in 2012

Auctions season is practically over.  Almost all the roe produced in 2012 has been sold, the rest in Busan and production at East Sakhalin zone will not change general statistics.  As usual, exact price is not always known and sometimes it is difficult to learn, however, general discussions with sellers and buyers give a lot of intelligence to process.

The year statistics in Busan as we see it today is:

Volume 29,670 MT (including negotiations, previous years product, non-Russian roes)
Average price $12.27 for 1 kg.

From the very beginning of the season it was clear that there was almost no high grade large size roes.  It was caused by natural reasons and new policy of AKROS owners.

That's why prices for top quality roes were high from almost the very beginning, to be exact - from the second week of the auction.  The main buyer of Okeanrybflot (Polluks) roes refused to buy greater part of their product at negotiations, and about four thousand tons were sold at open auctions.  This roe was partially sold at open auctions in 2010-2011 too, when "other" buyers purchased about 2600 MT.

This year there was not many negotiation sales, almost all of them were done by Pacific Andes.  Anyway, a number of times high quality lots were sold after an open inspection before bidding.  Market players believe it happened when buyers who desperately needed high quality roe gave a price higher than sellers actually had expected.

High quality roes price pulled up the other products.  Season average price grew up more than three dollars, to about $12.30. It is somewhat more than average US auctions price this year.  The most expensive lot we know was a lot of BAMR worth $16.62.  The most expensive vessel - Solborg (season average price $15.41 / kg), and top ten producers are:

It's clearly seen, the greater part of the table is occupied by Nakhodka BAMR.  Small wonder it was this company who became number one in this year "competition", shifting traditional leader Akros to the second position.  BAMR season average was about $13.80, while Akros price $13.57.  The third position is occupied by Kamchatimpex roe ($13.43), the fourth - Okeanrybflot / Polluks, the fifth - Lenina Kolkhoz.  We want stress once again that information is not always reliable as sometimes producers prefer to keep prices in secret, and we had to collect intelligence in roundabout ways.  Some producers prefer to sell via Korean and Japanese agents, and it is particularly difficult to learn real price as agents try to conceal their commission size.

It's worth mention that serious price rise in Busan and Seattle, as far as we know, is not related with Japanese retail market.  There was no noticeable increase in either volume or price.  The other way round, consumption has moved from gift packs to cheaper supermarket sets, i.e. average price didn't move up at the very least.  It is not clear how Japanese processors are going to compensate price growth, as procurement budget for Russian roes only is more than $100 million more than 2011.  Idea of plot between Kaisyo and Kaneha who provoked high prices doesn't look realistic as well.  At last, it was not them who paid the highest average price, but Kanefuku who always was in background.  Looking at buyers' results, we think the best was Tokai Denpun who managed to keep their average price at $11.10, below the other main buyers.