The tuna fishing vessel belonging to Asia’s biggest canned tuna exporter, Thai Union Frozen Products, was seized on October 29, 2009 with 23 Russians, two Filipinos and two Ghanaians on board.
“We have released the ship after we received $3 million in ransom,” a pirate named Hassan told Reuters. “The ship is named Thai Union, its crew have safely moved from the Somali coast.” Read the rest of this entry »
It appears that the dawn of the new decade has ushered in an era of readjustment and consolidation in the global tuna industry with special focus on resource sustainability. A move by some European nations to put northern bluefin tuna under CITES List I, if successful, would result in a total trade ban of the species resulting in the collapse of the multi-billion dollar sashimi tuna trade. Even otherwise, many other developments are bound to affect the trade in high-valued tunas. ICCAT’s and CSSBT’s decision to reduce quotas for northern bluefin and southern bluefin tunas respectively and the proposed moratorium on bigeye tuna fishing in the western and central Pacific ocean will undoubtedly reduce sashimi tuna supplies and much affect the market. Read the rest of this entry »
Basque tuna boat Albacan on Thursday escaped from a pirate attack in the Indian ocean about 350 miles off the Kenyan shore. There was a shooting and the attackers threw a grenade to the ship, but no one was injured.
As the Albacora shipping company told news agency EFE, the attack took place about 8am (Spanish time). The trawler has already left the area and the crew have resumed their activity. Read the rest of this entry »
Some time has passed since the Mellor Brothers sent to tunaseiners.com an e-mail requesting assistance to purchase a purse seine fishing vessel for the Bahamas area See article here.
Apparently they succeeded and bought a boat: Pelagic I that we can deduce by the images were acquired in Europe and does not match the type of boat seines used in tropical waters in either the Western or Eastern Pacific. Read the rest of this entry »
EARTH Island Institute (EII) last week warned that no foreign tuna processing company will invest in Guadalcanal as long as dolphin export and capture activities continues.
Director of the institute Mark Berman who is currently in the country for a week said this.
He made the stern warning following revelation that a Korean Tuna company is having talks with the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Nollen Leni. Read the rest of this entry »
TUNA – LIGHT CHUNK
Prices for skipjack raw material dropped sharply and unexpectedly in the middle of February in both Thailand and the Philippines. Fishing boats were queuing up in Bangkok with very little interest from the canneries to purchase additional fish. The factories have been sitting with their freezers packed to capacity with skipjack raw material. From a level of $1120 per metric ton in January, raw material pricing has reached a low of $900 per metric ton. Read the rest of this entry »
