Additional reporting by Oriana Aguillon

Peru will fish the entirety of the anchovy quota for its main fishing zone in the coming days, easing a tight global market for fishmeal and fish oil. 

Peru's industrial fleet managed to dodge the worst of COVID-19 despite high infectious rates in the South American country, Cayetana Aljovin, president of Peru's National Fisheries Society (SNP) said in a webinar. Fishing companies have completed 97% of a quota of 2.33 million metric tons for the country's main center-north fishing zone. 

Companies and authorities reported excellent positive biomass levels, which augurs well for a positive second fishing season starting in December. Only 8% of the catch for the first season was juvenile fish, under the 23% recommended level by Peruvian national marine authority, known by the acronym IMARPE. 

"Given how healthy the biomass looks, we hope that the second season quota will be very similar to the first," Aljovin said. 

The worst-case scenario would be warmer than usual temperatures in the second half of this year, which causes anchovy to swim to deeper waters, Aljovin said. That is exactly what happened in 2019. 

This year's first season catch means Peru, the world's largest seller of fishmeal and fish oil, resembles the country's longer-term average in its fishing season. Annual captures were 4.2m metric tons a year between 2010 and 2020 in the center-north. They dropped to 2.2m a year between 2014 and 2020 as a result of El Nino. The weather phenomenon tends to warm the ocean in the southeast Pacific and results in higher salinity, which causes anchovy to swim towards the coast or further out to sea. 

The Peruvian industry managed to reach the quota despite a late start and several vessels being out of action, Aljovin said. Only 594 of the 700 industrial vessels usually available for fishing made the trip out into the Pacific this year, she said. 

Fishing companies also had to contend with a lower-than-usual number of crew members. One challenge that the industry is still navigating is the closure of some processing plants. 

Fishmeal prices spiked on the uncertainty surrounding the fishing season from Peru, which, together with Chile, provide a third of global supply, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Peru should export more than $1 billion of fishmeal from this first fishing season, SNP general manager Jorge Risi said. 

Chinese fishmeal prices started to increase in April to CNY 13,500/t ($1,902/t) with duties and storage costs paid. Inventories began to decline in Chinese warehouses earlier this year as the economy started to recover. China's economy recorded positive growth of 3.2% in the second quarter of this year, meaning it is recovering much faster than most from the pandemic. 

Some of the uncertainty surrounding Peruvian supply came from its status as one of the worst affected countries by COVID-19. Peru currently ranks sixth in the world for infected people behind the US, Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa. The pandemic has resulted in widespread quarantine conditions and sickened many workers in the fishmeal and fish oil industry. 

Aljovin called on Peruvian authorities to improve fishing conditions for vessels operating in the southern fishing zone. The industry has, for a long time, appealed to Imarpe to allow improved fishing conditions as neighboring Chile manages to catch most of the biomass in this area. Authorities opened the fishery in July, seven months later than usual, meaning that Chilean vessels captured a good percentage of the biomass [...]