October Landings

This morning, NOAA released shrimp landings data from the Gulf of Mexico for the month of October 2015.

In total, 13.6 million pounds of shrimp were landed in the Gulf last month, a sharp drop from the 18.2 million pounds landed in October 2014 and nearly 12% below the previous thirteen-year historical average for October landings (15.4 million pounds).

For the first ten months of the year, landings stand at 88.4 million pounds.  This represents the lowest amount of shrimp landed in the Gulf since 2010 (72.3 million pounds) and is nearly 16% below the previous thirteen-year historical average (104.8 million pounds).

Underlying these poor harvest numbers has been a sharp drop in shrimp landings in Louisiana.  Through October, less than 36.1 million pounds of shrimp have been reported as landed in the state, compared 47.2 million pounds over the same period last year and a thirteen-year historical average of 51.4 million pounds.  Landings through the first ten months of the year have accounted for between 71% and 89% of the total annual landings in the state.  NOAA’s historical reporting indicates that Louisiana is likely to post its second worst harvest year over the last fourteen years.

In Texas, shrimpers have already landed more shrimp in the first ten months of 2015 (33.3 million pounds) than they landed in all of 2014 (33.1 million pounds).  Landings in the state in October (5.2 million pounds) were on par with the previous thirteen-year historical average for the month (5.2 million pounds).  For the year, landings in the state are just 3% below the 34.2 million pound historical average for the prior thirteen years.

While landings volumes are down, ex-vessel prices reported by NOAA remain very low.  Prices for 41-50 count headless shrimp in the Western Gulf (Texas ports) were reported to be just $1.26 per pound in October – the lowest reported in any October by NOAA in data going back to 2001 even without adjusting prior year prices for inflation.  Although prices in this count size were stronger in the Northern Gulf ($1.88 per pound) and the Eastern Gulf ($1.69 per pound), these prices were slightly more than half the ex-vessel prices reported for the same size shrimp in October 2014.  Dockside prices for 26-30 count headless shrimp also were reported to be roughly half what they were in October 2014 in both the Western Gulf ($2.53 per pound in October 2015 versus $5.38 per pound in October 2014) and the Northern Gulf ($2.88 per pound in October 2015 versus $5.62 per pound in October 2014).  Only ex-vessel prices for U15 count headless shrimp have avoided massive collapse.  However, prices in both the Western Gulf ($7.92 per pound in October 2015 versus $9.39 per pound in October 2014) and the Northern Gulf ($7.16 per pound in October 2015 versus $9.02 per pound in October 2014) were still significantly lower than they were in the previous year.

Please click the following link to view SSA’s compilation and summary of October 2002-2015 Shrimp Landings and Ex-Vessel Prices:
https://shrimpalliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/October-2015-Landings.pdf