US ramps up pollock production in the Bering Sea

For 2023, the volume of possible pollock production in the Bering Sea was increased for American fishermen by 17% to 1.3 million tons. This decision was made by the US Department of Commerce, it was published on the website of this department on December 12.

In August 2022, the decision to increase pollock production in the Bering Sea was also taken by the Federal Agency for Fishery, increasing the quota by 26.6% to 559,000 tons. The following year, domestic fishermen were allowed to catch 9.4% more – 612,000 tons.

Fishing in the Bering Sea is regulated by an agreement on the division of the water area, concluded between the USA and the USSR back in 1990. The entire catch was divided in a ratio of 80% to 20% in favor of America. But in March 2022, the presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District

Deputy Prime Minister – presidential envoy to the Far Eastern Federal District Yuri Trutnev proposed to achieve parity between the two countries by dividing production in half. After that, the Federal Agency for Fisheries increased the quota for domestic fish producers, substantiating this decision with the conclusion of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO).

The Federal Agency for Fishery is aware of the US Department of Commerce’s decision, a spokesman for the agency said, adding that it had not been discussed with the Russian side. The decision to increase the quota was caused by the desire to force domestic fishermen out of the European market for primary frozen pollock fillets, says German Zverev, president of the All-Russian Association of Fisheries.

According to him, US fish producers will now be able to offer EU buyers a guaranteed volume of supplies at an acceptable price for them. This will make it possible to repeat the situation of the early 2000s, when Russian fishermen were practically forced out of the European markets, which are their main ones, Zverev explains.

After a mutual increase in the volume of permitted production, the potential global catch of pollock will increase to 3.8 million tons – this is the highest figure in recent years, explains the president of the Association of pollock harvester Alexei Buglak. According to him, given the recession in the main consumer markets, competition between Russian and American producers for export markets will now intensify.

Russia and the US account for 95% of the world’s pollock harvest and fillet production, explains Buglak. At the same time, both countries supply most of the products for export. The key market for pollock fillet is Europe, which in 2012-2019. imported an average of 270,000-280,000 tons of such products worth about $ 800 million, follows from the data of the Association of pollock miners.

US producers occupied 30-32% of the European market, and Russian fishermen – no more than 10%. But according to the results of the three quarters of 2022, Russia for the first time pressed American products in the European market, taking 28% of the pollock market against 25% from the United States. According to interim data of the current year, Russian enterprises overtook the Americans in terms of supplies of pollock fillets to Europe – 42,200 tons against 38,600 tons, Buglak cites data.

The head of the Fisheries Information Agency, Alexander Savelyev, says the desire to push Russian fishermen out of the EU market is logical. The USA and Russia are the main pollock suppliers to the world market. If this succeeds, then the volumes of fillets that are now going to the EU market will have to be redirected to the markets of Korea and China, but it will be difficult to do this: these countries prefer to buy just gutted pollock and process it on their own.

When determining the volume of pollock production, the United States takes into account not only the state of the fish population, but also the demand for fish products, explains Alexei Osintsev, president of the Association of Fishing Fleet Owners (ASRF). According to him, the weighting of the catches on board the vessels positively affects the preservation and increase in the fishing mass, due to which there is no overfishing. So the increase in the quota for 2023 is actually a confirmation of both the presence of demand and the stability of the situation with the fish population, the expert says.

Over 90% of pollock catches by American fishermen go into deep processing, while this figure is 2.5 times lower for Russian miners, says Osintsev. In his opinion, the fishing industry needs to learn from experience in order to increase its share in the global market.

Before the agreement with the United States on the delimitation of maritime spaces, Russian fishermen could catch pollock in more eastern areas, that is, the geography of fishing was wider and the availability of different fish stocks was better, says Sergey Sennikov, deputy director of Norebo Management Company. But, according to him, now it will be difficult to increase the Russian quota all at once, despite the fact that it is possible: Russian fishermen simply do not have excessive fishing capacity to sharply increase production, which means that the quota, even with an increase, may not be fully utilized.