Midnight Friday last deadline for Russia-bound seafood ‘if you are lucky’

Midnight Friday last deadline for Russia-bound seafood ‘if you are lucky’

All containers of seafood and trucks of salmon that don’t clear Russian customs by midnight Friday will have to be sent back or sent somewhere else, even if they were ordered before the sanctions were put in place, Undercurrent News understands.
Update: (8/11/2014)

With the confused situation in the wake of the ban announced Thursdayon seafood and other agricultural products from the US, the EU, Canada, Norway and Australia, sellers and importers in the Russian market have been scrambling to work out the full implications of the situation for products on route to the market.

Initially, the deadline was given as Thursday at midnight and then trucks of salmon were reportedheld at the Russian borders on Friday morning.

It is understood that pre-paid trucks and containers of seafood arriving Friday have a chance of getting in, but after this there is no chance.

"All trucks and containers are to be sent back. If some will manage to get something through today, it will be luck for them, but it is unclear,” Yury Alasheev, the owner of importer Agama and also the chairman of Fish Union, an organization of Russian importers and processors, toldUndercurrent.

It’s a long night ahead for executives with some salmon importers, still trying to get trucks in.

One toldUndercurrentshe had got some trucks in, but not all. "Now everyone is praying his truck to get in.”

She said she had paid them all today, "so for me only issue is to get them in by midnight. The night is going to be long and hard, that’s for sure”.

As trucks of salmon take as long as four days to get from Norway to Russia, many even ordered before the ban have been cancelled. With containers taking as long as two months to arrive from around the world, one source said as much as 300 might have be impacted, "but maybe more”.

There had been meetings with the government Friday at which importers had tried to get better situation, even for containers and trucks ordered before the ban was put in place to be let in, irrespective of the arrival date, but this has not happened.

One importer, who had a lot of containers arriving on Saturday, said cargo is likely to be diverted into the Ukraine for products such as hake, as the market is larger than Russia.

Ukraine has it’s own problems, however, with the economic situation and consumption heavily impacted by the fighting between the government and rebels supporting a re-union with Russia.

On Thursday, US hake and pollock sellers weretrying to get a read on the situation.

"We are going to take care of our current shipments; we have containers on the water and are hearing conflicting things from Russia,”Larz Malony, who handles international sales for Pacific Seafood Group, the Clackamas, Oregonbased US firm which is the major player in shore-based hake processing.

"Some importers are saying that is the shipments were on the water by Aug. 6, then they will be allowed to enter into the country. Others are thinking that the ban starts now and shipments on the water will not be allowed in. We do not yet see a clear or official position from Russia,” he toldUndercurrent.

fromUndercurrent News,