Russian herring fishery in the Norwegian EEZ gathering momentum

The Russian herring fishery off the Lofoten Islands started three weeks later than the Norwegian fishery. The first trawl was set by BMRTB Rybachyi owned by Arkhangelsk Trawl Fleet who came to the grounds of the 66th degree North by 25 January 2007. By the end of January two similar trawlers Zavolzhsk and Revolutsia owned by the same company and RTMKS Boris Syromyatnikov owned by Murmansk Trawler Fleet joined the first mentioned ship on the grounds. According to the information coming from the grounds, the conditions were satisfactory and enabled the fleets to conduct fairly efficient fishery with the catch rates of 50-70 tonnes per day. By early February one Moonsund large trawler owned by Murmansk Trawl Fleet followed by another Murmansk-based BMRTB trawler Nikolay Afanasjev owned by OOO Iceberg-Nord (ltd) started harvesting 90-100 tonnes per day. The share of large herring 300+ on the grounds in between the 65-66th degrees North fluctuated from 10 to 50%. The fishermen said that the fish practically did not feed. The bulk of catches was contributed by prespawning fish and the process engineers said that by early February on some grounds up to 20-30% of fish had already started actively spawning. On 2 February 2007 the group was joined by Kaliningrad-based trawler Tsefey owned by OOO Maritime Star (ltd). By the end of the first week of February 2007 the total harvest of herring in the Norwegian EEZ amounted to more than 2000 tonnes, while by that time landings of the Norwegian fleet had already exceeded 200,000 tonnes.

According to Murmansk Fish Resources, in the end of the first week of February 2007 different operators on the wholesale market offered only Russian herring from autumn catches of 2006 though there appeared some offers of Norwegian herring from the January landings 2007 at prices as follows: