Chilean Atlantic salmon exports swelled to 79,239 tonnes in the first two months of 2018, up by 33.8 percent over the same span a year ago, as export value accrued to USD 642 million, according to Chile’s Salmon Index.
Although the export value of Chilean Atlantics in the two-month period was up 9.5-percent year-on-year, the average per-kilogram FOB price for the species fell 18 percent to 8.1 USD.
The U.S. took 30 percent of all Chilean Atlantic salmon in the two-month period.
Cermaq Chile has led the way thus far in 2018, and its export volumes from Chile are up 102 percent over the same two months of 2017. Cermaq chalked up 66.8 percent more return for its Chilean haulage, although its FOB prices were down to USD 7.5/kg, or down 17 percent over the same two months of 2017.
Exports of Atlantic salmon to Russia were up 46 percent in the first eight weeks of this year to 10,547 t, with export values to the sanctions-hit country rising 31 percent to USD 69.5 million. The main story, however, was the US market’s 10-percent surge in volume to 30,274 t, an amount that’s 29 percent more than in the year-ago period and one that now nearly equal sales values to Japan of USD 320 million.
