The crab didn’t reach the nets

Some participants in the first auctions for the sale of crab fishing quotas had difficulties with the fishery. Thus, Rosrybolovstvo wants to terminate the contract for catching equal-thorn crab with Voskhod of Nikita Kozhemyako, the son of Primorye Governor Oleg Kozhemyako, due to the fact that the company has mastered less than 70% of the quota for two years in a row. This is one of the valuable species of crabs, but it is difficult to fish, experts say.

Rosrybolovstvo appealed to the Moscow Arbitration Court with an application to Voskhod LLC for early termination of the contract dated October 2019, which assigns the company a share of crab fishing quotas. The decision to accept the application was published in the file of cases, a preliminary hearing is scheduled for February 2024.

“Voskhod” belongs to Nikita Kozhemyako, the son of the governor of the Primorsky Territory Oleg Kozhemyako. Under this agreement, the company received 5.263% of all quotas for several types of crabs purchased at an auction in October 2019 for 3.56 billion rubles. Quotas are fixed for 15 years.

Rosrybolovstvo told Kommersant that the application for early termination of the contract concerns the share of the quota for catching crab in the North Sea of ​​Okhotsk subzone, which in 2020-2021 was developed by Voskhod by less than 70%. According to the law on fisheries, this provides grounds for the forced termination of the right to extract aquatic biological resources, the agency recalled. For 2020-2021, this share provides rights to catch more than 93 tons of crabs, for 2022-2023 – 42.4 tons per year. Voskhod did not answer Kommersant’s questions.

The All-Russian Association of Fisheries (VARPE) in July, before the second stage of auctions with quotas for crab fishing, estimated the average cost of equal-spined crab at 540.26 thousand rubles. per ton, which corresponds to 2019 prices. Only blue crab (RUB 1.5 million per ton), Kamchatka crab (RUB 1.18 million per ton) and opilio snow crab (RUB 717.57 thousand per ton) are valued more expensive than equal-spined crab (RUB 717.57 thousand per ton), it follows from the data VARPE.

Alexander Fomin, executive director of the Association of Fish Market Manufacturing and Trading Enterprises, says that fishing for equal-spined crab can be difficult and costly. According to him, this is one of the deep-sea species of crabs with unstable reserves, and the small volume of production per day makes the operation of the fleet in the fishing area insufficiently profitable, so the company can focus on developing other quotas in the process.

As follows from the order of the Federal Agency for Fishery, the rights to harvest equal-thorn crab in this zone based on the results of auctions in 2019 also belong to the structures of the Russian Crab Group of Companies and the Antey Group of Companies. President of the Association of Shipowners of the Fishing Fleet (ASRF; includes Russian Crab Group of Companies) Alexey Osintsev says that there is no reason for insufficient development of crab fishing quotas by ASRF participants. The fleet’s capacity, especially taking into account the renewal to meet investment quotas, and resource reserves are sufficient, he added. Antey Group of Companies did not provide a comment.

Managing partner of the Veta expert group, Ilya Zharsky, says that Voskhod may try to prove that objective difficulties prevented the achievement of the indicators specified in the law – for example, force majeure or actions or inaction of third parties. A Kommersant source among crab miners believes that objective circumstances may include a sharp decline in the population, a vessel breakdown, stormy weather during the season, or the economic impracticality of catching due to a sharp drop in price.

The head of the Fisheries Information Agency, Alexander Savelyev, notes a general increase in the number of claims from the regulator against participants in the investment quota program, also recalling fines for the insufficient level of processing of the catch caught under the quota at factories. According to him, this may influence the attitude of businesses towards such auctions in the future. The Voskhod quota, the expert adds, will be put up for sale if withdrawn, but the latest auction for the rights to catch deep-sea crabs has been unsuccessful.

Anatoly Kostyrev