Image: Revista Puerto / FIS

Squid: 'The Market Had a Lot of Supply in a Short Time'

ARGENTINA
Wednesday, July 10, 2024, 01:00 (GMT + 9)

Juan Redini analyzes the squid harvest that ended early in relation to 2023 but still showed a good level of abundance with the reappearance of the South Patagonian stock. The good catches in the Malvinas altered the pace of exports.

The squid season has been closed since the middle of last month and the 71 vessels that made up the national jigging fleet declared landings that reached 127,803 tons. The figure represents an improvement of 68% in the interannual comparison until June 25, although the statistics will end with numbers in the red since last year the jigging vessels unloaded 134 thousand tons.

Source: Revista Puerto

For Juan Redini the harvest was “good.” The president of CAPA acknowledged that although they would have liked to be able to be fishing at this time of year as they did last year, they respect the INIDEP decision.

The Cephalopods Program had not found any indication to enable a survey in the North Management Unit, north of the parallel of 44° South, given the nonexistence of the second cohort of the North Patagonian Buenos Aires stock that last year revitalized the catches after a Temporary ban in the month of May.

Source: Stockfile FIS

“It was quite acceptable. Unlike last year, this season the best was to the south, with a good abundance of the Sudpatagonian Stock on the platform, something that has not happened since 2015, I think. It was excellent quality squid. On the other hand, the level of abundance in the north that in 2023 allowed us to fish was not repeated until the month of August when in the south we had had poor catches,” the shipowner said when asked.

Another distinctive fact that Redini marked was the larger harvest that the 110 ships that operate in the Malvinas had and that at times complicated sales. “The market had a lot of supply in a very short time and that hindered marketing a bit. There were weeks when we consulted about orders and it took them up to fifteen days to respond to us. That's because the catches in the Malvinas were growing, I think they reached 75 thousand tons when they came from fishing about 35 thousand, and no one wanted to validate prices that could later go down," explained the leader.

Squid exports between January and May reached 121 thousand tons, which generated 306.4 million dollars. The figures represented an increase of 75% in volume and 150.5% in value. The average price was $2,543 per ton, 17.3% above the 2023 average.

“Catches have been quite stable in recent years and that is very positive. Sales, except for those weeks when they slowed down a bit, were also positive,” Redini stressed.

At the last meeting of the Fishery Monitoring Commission, the shipping sector asked INIDEP researchers how the national fleet could not find the squid that then migrated outwards and fed the fleet's statistics with licenses from the british government.

“They explained to us that the 8 ships that operated south of the parallel of 49° South, prior to the start of the 2024 harvest, did so in an area closer to the coast and that in reality it is believed that the concentrations were further out.”explained the President of CAPA.

In that sense, the leader explained that “the Malvinas fleet caught squid between February and March, specimens of sizes S and M. We had come from a couple of years where we did not find anything to the south; Maybe next year, based on these better results, there will be ships willing to look for it further abroad,” he assured.

Regarding the progress of the fishery certification process and the signing of the agreement with INIDEP to start an Improvement Project, the president of CAPA highlighted the good level of observer coverage that the fleet had, while revealing that the researchers will collaborate with some specific measurements such as biological reference points, the interaction of the fishery with birds and mammals, among others.

Source: Stockfile FIS

“It is a three-year plan that will allow us to have better tools to advance in the certification process,” said Redini.

The campaigns are another important point in the plan and this year only the one in the Southern Management Unit could be completed since the one in the North was canceled due to mechanical problems in the “Eduardo Holmberg” RV.

CAPA hopes to have data on the relative abundance of juveniles from the South Patagonian stock and the summer spawning stock, to outline the 2025 harvest, based on the global hake campaign that should be launched these days aboard the “Víctor Angelescu” .

Fuente: Revista Puerto 

[email protected]
www.seafood.media

Print