Brutal stop after three weeks of continuous hike.
“I think it will be down by NOK 8-10,” said a trader about next week’s spot price to SalmonBusiness. “I hear 65-66 kroner (EUR 6-6.1) now, but it’s still early, he added.
This means that the period in which salmon prices sniffed at the year’s best levels in January was rather short-lived. The causes are mainly found on the demand side.
“The market has announced that prices are too high,” said another trader, explaining: “Airlines stopped, China stopped and Europe followed.”
“It is not volume that is the problem, but the price level was just too high. The market is not healthy. When we got so high, they simply said “no thanks”. And then the price falls back.”
“No speculation is being done now,” he added, looking at prices between EUR 6-6.4.
PAS: We expect the salmon price for next week to be around NOK 67/kg, this is NOK 6/kg lower than what we expected for this week #salmon
— Svend Egil Larsen (@selaco) June 11, 2020
Others, however, can report exceptionally favorable timing on their sales:
“We have sold almost everything at NOK 70 (EUR 6.5) for next week, and then we have minimal fish left, says a mid-Norwegian fish farmer, before adding: “I can’t listen to the exporters who are at NOK 59 (EUR 5.4).”
“It’s temporary,” he said of the fall in prices. “There were so many people who were going to harvest at 75 kroner (EUR 6.9). So now a lot of small fish that were to be slaughtered in July and August go under the knife this week. I think 15 percent more fish are harvested simply because of the price.”
