Around ISK 11.1 billion (USD 108.8 million, EUR 88.7 million) worth of seafood was caught by the Icelandic fishing fleet in October 2017, an increase of 0.8 percent compared with a year previously, with reduced earnings from its demersal and flatfish catches but higher vales from the pelagic and shellfish categories, according to the latest figures issued by Statistics Iceland.
Iceland’s demersal catch value for the month decreased by 0.4 percent to ISK 7.8 billion (USD 76.4 million, EUR 62.3 million), with cod’s value falling by 2.8 percent compared with October 2016 to ISK 5.2 billion (USD 51 million, EUR 41.5 million), haddock was down 4.8 percent to ISK 830.1 million (USD 8.1 million, EUR 6.6 million) and saithe fell 12.4 percent to ISK 451.1 million (USD 4.4 million, EUR 3.6 million). However, the redfish catch value increased by almost 25 percent to more than ISK 1 billion (USD 9.8 million, EUR 8 million).
The country’s pelagic catch value increased by 4.6 percent to ISK 2.6 billion (USD 25.5 million, EUR 20.8 million), with a 16.4 percent spike in the herring value at almost ISK 2.3 billion (USD 22.5 million, EUR 18.4 million), although the mackerel value fell by 58.1 percent to ISK 220.1 million (USD 2.2 million, EUR 1.8 million).
At the same time, the country’s flatfish value dropped by 8.4 percent to ISK 476.9 million (USD 4.7 million, EUR 3.8 million) and its shellfish value jumped 44.1 percent to ISK 164.1 million (USD 1.6 million, EUR 1.3 million).
The accumulated total catch value for the year November 2016 through October 2017 declined by 20.2 percent year-on-year to ISK 109.3 billion (USD 1.1 billion, EUR 872.7 million), with reductions in the demersal, pelagic, flatfish and shellfish catch values of 22.5 percent, 10.2 percent, 21.4 percent and 33.1 percent respectively.
During the 12-month period, ISK 59.4 billion (USD 872.7 million, EUR 581.9 million) worth of Iceland’s total catch went directly for domestic processing (down 17.1 percent), while ISK 16 billion (USD 156.7 million, EUR 127.8 million) worth was sold at auction for domestic processing (down 19.9 percent). Landings valued at less than ISK 4.1 billion (USD 40.2 million, EUR 32.7 million) were exported in containers (down 23.5 percent), and the frozen-at-sea catch fell by 24.1 percent year-on-year to ISK 29.5 billion (USD 28.9 million, EUR 23.6 million).
Meanwhile, a total of 1,621 fishing vessels were registered with the Icelandic Transport Authority at the end of 2017, 26 fewer ships than in the previous year.
The Transport Authority divides fishing vessels into three classes, un-decked vessels, decked vessels and trawlers, where some decked ships have more gross tonnage than the largest trawlers. The number of decked vessels was 735 and their combined size was 92,460 gross tonnages (GT), with a reduction of 12 vessels and 2,046 GT.
There were 44 trawlers, one more than in the previous year, but six new trawlers were registered in 2017, leading to a gross tonnage of 61,841 GT, up 9,425 GT. At the end of 2017, there were also 842 un-decked vessels with a combined 4,154 GT.
In the last five years, 70 vessels were registered as new, with the newbuilds comprising eight trawlers, 37 decked vessels and 25 un-decked vessels. Fifty-three of these were built in Iceland, all with fiberglass hulls and less than 30 GT. All of the trawlers and four of the seven decked vessels larger than 1,000 GT were built in Turkey.
