On 9 March, Russia announced an auction for the last lot of investment quotas for deep-water crab. The event, to be held in early April, will officially complete the crab quota reform begun in 2019.
The lot will offering fishing rights for two species: beni-zuwai crab (chionoecetes japonicus) in the West Sakhalin subzone in the Tatar Strait as well as in the Primorye subzone, located in the East Sea; and triangle tanner crab (chionoecetes angulatus) in the East Sakhalin and North Okhotsk Sea subzones, located in the Sea of Okhotsk.
The starting price for bidding on the quota is RUB 235 million (USD 3.2 million, EUR 2.7 million).
Russia’s crab quota reform envisaged the sale of 50 percent of the country’s crab quotas through auctions, with the winner of each auction being required to build a modern crab fishing vessel at a Russian shipyard.
In the first round of auctions, six lots for deep-sea crabs were not sold due to a lack of bidders. A further five attempts to sell proved fruitless, as no interest was expressed by potential buyers. At last in late 2020, four lots were sold to Tefida company, which paid RUB 636.6 million (USD 8.2 million, EUR 7 million) per lot, each of which included the right to fish 713 metric tons (MT) of crab.
In January 2021, two remaining lots were offered, each containing a right to fish beni-zuwai crab in the Tatar Strait and the East Sea and triangle tanner crab in the Sea of Okhotsk.
One of the last two lots was sold to the only bidder, a company by the name of Amurrybprom, which paid the starting bid price of RUB 261.5 million (USD 3.5 million, EUR 3 million).
If the only lot left is sold, the winner will be obliged to build a 50-meter ship, and the reform of crab quotas proposed in 2019 will be completed. However, the Russian government has recently signaled it may sell off the remaining half of the country's crab quota in the future.
Photo courtesy of Alexey Pevnev/Shutterstock
