Logistics problems are becoming more serious for Russian pollock

As long as more and more pollock is taken out of the sea of Okhotsk, delivery problems are becoming grave, reports Megafishnet.com.

No pollock HG has been delivered by trampers to China this year.  Port of Qingdao used to be the main gateway for Russian fish and the most important processing center.  Alas, the port is closed for trampers from November.  Dalian, the second most important destination, was closed for frozen cargoes in January, and many people thought it was a temporary measure to celebrate Chinese New Year.  The festival is long over, but no trampers are allowed to be discharged in Dalian.

Containers however are allowed to both ports.  Many Russian companies had a hope that Busan could become a good transhipment point for China.  No chance!  57000 MT of APO HG has been discharged there in 2021, and, according to our sources about 50000 is still there.

The reason for it is known.  The matter is that containers with Russian pollock are allowed to cold storages after disinfection, but no APO is allowed out of the cold storage without any transparent explanation.

As both Russian and Korean cold storages are full, some Russian companies by recommendation of Peter Savchuk, deputy head of Federal Agency for Fisheries are studying  a chance to store APO HG in Japan.  Surprise there as well.  It turned out that discharge speed there is just 250MT per ship (not a hold!) per business day.  Labour unions don’t even discuss any form of overtime.  Demurrage might become prohibitive.

Plenty of questions, and no answers.  Meanwhile price CFR China/Busan is not great, just 1150-1180 for a ton of most popular size 25+, while logistics expense has grown dramatically.

For copyright please contact Vera Aldokhina at vera@megafishnet.com.