May 17, 2013 — In theory, having a large catch quota is a nice situation to be in; not least it endorses the good management practices that are probably in place. But as Norway is finding out through its record cod allocation this year, it’s not as simple as just selling more fish.
There was much fanfare when this year’s total allowable catch (TAC) for cod in the Barents Sea was set at 1 million metric tons (MT) by the Joint Norwegian-Russian Fisheries Commission, an increase of 33 percent or 249,000 metric tons.
Norway, with a 446,740 MT share of the TAC initially felt finding markets for all its additional cod — some 107,000 MT — wouldn’t be an issue, particularly as the haddock TAC had been reduced. But that hasn’t proved to be the case and the result of the oversupply has been that cod prices have tumbled all over Europe.
According to the Norwegian Seafood Council (NSC), the average export price for the country’s fresh cod last month was NOK 15.30 (USD 2.62, EUR 2.03) per kilogram, a drop of 28 percent or NOK 5.92 (USD 1, EUR 0.79) compared with the average price in April 2012. At the same time, its export volume of whole fresh cod increased by 179 percent from 3,646 MT in April 2012 to 10,160 MT in April 2013. This was the first time that this export product had exceeded 10,000 MT in a single month.
Read the full story at SeafoodSource.com