Russian fisherman caught a total of 879,700 metric tons (MT) of pollock during the country's A season, a 2.4 percent increase compared to the 858,000 MT caught last year, the Pollock Catchers Association reported.
Russia’s pollock A season typically starts on 1 January, and this year lasted through 10 April. The vast majority of the catch this year was caught in the Sea of Okhotsk, which was responsible for 788,700 MT of pollock. While that total is 1.5 percent higher than the catch in 2021, it is still lagging behind earlier catches – 2021's totals represented a 15 percent drop from 2020.
While the catch is still lower than in previous years, the country’s output of more deeply processed and value-added products has increased significantly – continuing a trend that began in 2021. Production of pollock fillets at sea increased 50 percent year-on-year, and mince production at sea increased 92 percent. The Russian fleet's output of surimi was 18 times higher than it was in 2021, the PCA said in a press release.
PCA President Alexey Buglak said the trend was linked to an increase in the number of ships equipped with fillet-production equipment – 39 vessels now have advanced processing equipment, compared to 30 a year ago.
Buglak reported 36 percent of the total catch of pollock was used for fillets, compared to 24 percent in 2021 and 17 percent in 2020. While frozen pollock still represents the bulk of Russia’s pollock production, this year, output of headed and gutted frozen pollock decreased by 17 percent to 280,000 MT, and ungutted pollock output decreased 4 percent to 38,200 MT.
Russia’s production of pollock caviar also increased by 8 percent to 28,600 MT.
In total, 125 ships were deployed during the pollock A season, Buglak said.
All told, the country utilized 82 percent of its total allowable catch, compared to just 73 percent last year. In 2021, numerous Russian pollock-fishing companies avoided catching pollock after the country’s top export market destination, China, tightened inspections on imported seafood, straining the trading relationship between the two countries. In the first half of 2021, Russia’s exports to China decreased by 83 percent compared to 2020, and companies struggled to find buyers.
With the conclusion of the A season, Russian companies will begin fishing for pollock in Bering Sea in early summer. The Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) said that the weather conditions and water temperatures will be favorable through autumn and predicted a strong season.
The TAC for the West Bering Sea fishery zone for 2022 is 409,700 MT; for the Chukchee zone, the TAC is 5,000 MT; and for the Karaginskaya subzone, the TAC is 60,700 MT.
However, Russia may struggle to find willing buyers for its pollock due to sanctions imposed on it in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. The United States, United Kingdom, and European Union have all imposed sanctions on Russian seafood.
The PCA issued a forecast earlier this year saying the sanctions are creating openings in the domestic market for Russian-caught pollock. However, the PCA’s data shows that the country imported just 26,200 MT of frozen whitefish and 34,500 MT of fillets in 2021. Buglak noted that those amounts can be replaced by domestically-caught fish.
However, even if all imports are completely replaced by domestic catches, it will still leave hundreds of thousands of metric tons of pollock left over, with a much narrower market available for exports.
Photo courtesy of the Pollock Catchers Association
