The Peruvian government announced t

The Peruvian government announced this week that exploratory fishing will begin on March 12 in the Southern region of the country. There will be up to 50 vessels taking part in five geographic areas in the south. It will be a 5 day exploratory fishing period after which the government will use the results to determine the Southern fishing areas and quota – or so one assumes. The industry is expecting that all will go well and the full fishing in the south could begin before the end of March.

In the north there is not much change – a single vessels is conducting an exploratory voyage. One bit of news concerning the north is that for the next season there will be a quota set for the small/artisan fishing operations not just for the large commercial operators. It seems that there may have been a little bending on the rules for small/artisan fishing that a quota system may overcome.

The closer we get to a new fishing season in Peru the harder it is going to be to maintain prices at the current levels. South American fishmeal looks to be about USD 300+ to expensive versus production in the North Atlantic, so something will have to give.

I wouldn't be buying any new season Peruvian fishmeal these days unless I was looking at a very significant discount against the prices shown below. Of course, with nothing to sell the Peruvian prices below mean little or nothing.