Live king/snow crab market in S.Korea updates (As of Feb 9th, 2024)

- This week leading up to the Lunar New Year holidays in S.Korea(Feb 8th-12th), only 50 tons of live opilio snow crab and 54 tons of live bairdi snow crab were imported from Russia. There were no imports of live King Crab due to transportation issues caused by drifting ice in Russian waters and more Russian live crab boats heading to northern Chinese ports.

- As a result, there is a significant shortage of live snow crab and live king crab in Korea. There are no Russian live crab boats scheduled to arrive until February 13th, exacerbated by the holidays lasting until February 12th.

- As of February 9th, at Seoul's Noryangjin retail fish market, live blue king crabs weighing 2.2-3.0kg are trading at KRW 95000 (=US$ 71.7), live red king crabs at KRW 98000 (=US$ 74.0), live opilio snow crabs weighing 1.2-1.5kg at KRW 70000 (=US$ 52.8), and live brown king crabs at KRW 85000 (=US$64.0).

- Due to expected difficulties in delivery caused by drifting ice in important Russian waters and increased sales to northern China, the outlook for king crab supply until August this year is uncertain as in last year. It is forecasted that the sales proportion of live opilio snow crab and live brown crab will inevitably increase as is usual at this time of the year.