Peruvian anchovies will be fully harvested within a few days, easing global fishmeal and fish oil supplies

In the coming days, Peru will catch the full quota in its main fishing areas to ease tensions in the global fishmeal and fish oil markets.

Cayetana Aljovin, president of peru's National Fisheries Association (SNP), said at a webinar that despite the high rate of COVID-19 infection in the South American country, Peru's industrial fleet managed to survive the worst outbreak. In the main centre , the northern fishing area , fisheries companies completed 97 per cent of the quota of 2.33 million tonnes.

Companies and authorities reported excellent biomass levels, which bodes well for the second fishing season, starting in December. Only 8 percent of the catch in the first season were juveniles, down from the 23 percent level recommended by Peru's National Oceanic Authority (IMARPE).

Aljovin said: "Given how healthy the biomass looks, we hope the fish quota for the second season will look like this as well."

The worst-case scenario, Aljovin said, is that temperatures will be higher than usual in the second half of the year, which will cause the anchovies to swim deeper into the waters. That's exactly what happened in 2019.

Peru is the world's largest seller of fishmeal and fish oil, and this year's first season of fishing is on par with the country's average long-term catch. Between 2010 and 2020, the annual catch in the north-central region was 2.2 million tonnes, but between 2014 and 2020, fishing fell to 2.2 million tonnes due to el niño. This weather phenomenon tends to warm the oceans of the southeastern Pacific Ocean and leads to greater salinity, which allows anchovies to swim toward the coast or beyond.

Aljovin said Peru's fishing industry managed to meet its quota, albeit starting late and several ships already out of service. Of the 700 industrial fishing vessels that are normally available for fishing, only 594 have entered the Pacific this year, she said.

Fishing companies must also deal with a lower than normal number of crew members due to COVID.

One challenge the industry is still grappling with is the closure of some processing plants.

Fishmeal supplies from Peru and Chile account for a third of the world's fishmeal supply, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, and fishmeal prices have soared due to uncertainty over the fishing season. SNP General Manager Jorge Risi said Peru's fishmeal exports for the first fishing season should exceed $1 billion.

Chinese fishmeal prices began to rise in April to 13,500 yuan/tonne (US$1,902/tonne). Earlier this year, as the economy began to recover, tariffs and warehousing costs on warehouse inventories in China began to fall. In the second quarter of this year, China's economy achieved positive growth of 3.2%.

The original source is from UCN

Compiled and arranged by Yuyi Pai