The Peruvian Ministry of Production (Produce) authorized the first 2023 anchovy fishing season in the North-Central region to start with an exploratory fishing exercise of seven days starting on June 3, 2023. The quota for this region has been preliminarily fixed at 1.091 million tons, significantly below the 2022 quota of 2.79 million tons.
The fishing season will start after the exploratory fishing if the findings allow it, and the quota could be changed depending on the new biomass evaluation. The announcement has been delayed since Peruvian scientists were assessing the quota size and the potential impacts on the stock from this year's El Niño.
This announcement is of strategic importance to the marine ingredients industry given that, on average, based on annual production figures over the last decade, Peru accounts for 20% of global fishmeal and fish oil production.
IFFO reports
IFFO reported that, for the regions it regularly tracks, the cumulative total fishmeal production during the first four months of 2023 was up by 30% compared to the cumulative production reported through April 2022. The main driver of this increase is the larger production of fishmeal in Peru due to the late start of the 2022 second fishing season in the North-central area of the country. Spain was the only country to register a decrease in fishmeal production year-over-year.
As for fish oil, the total cumulative output in the first four months of 2023 was 7% down year-on-year, mainly driven by the drop in the fish oil production reported in the North European countries.
