Ecuador shrimp prices hit new low as weekly power cuts reach 72 hours
Ecuador's shrimp sector went into the week of 16 to 22 October with power rationing at 72 hours a week and came out of it with HOSO offers at their lowest level on record. Every count size lost ground again. The move is not being driven by demand. It is being driven by a grid that will not stay on.
The Numbers
The National Chamber of Aquaculture (CNA) laid out the escalation in a 14 October statement. Restrictions had gone from 24 to 48 and then to 72 hours a week within a matter of weeks. Medium-voltage users were disconnected from 14 October and scheduled to be reconnected at 06:00 on 21 October, which is close to a full week off the grid. Plants without their own generation cannot run freezing lines, and shrimp that is not frozen fast enough is not shrimp you can sell. SeafoodNews carried the CNA warning.
Origin quotes for week 43, as tracked in the weekly monitor published by Foodmate, fell USD 0.10 a kilo across every grade:
20/30 at USD 3.60/kg
30/40 at USD 3.20/kg
40/50 at USD 2.60/kg
50/60 and 60/70 at USD 2.20/kg
70/80 at USD 2.00/kg
80/100 at USD 1.80/kg
100/120 and 120/140 at USD 1.70/kg
The monitor put the market at a historic low, with some counts trading below any previous print. The slide has been running since early September. In week 37, 30/40 stood at USD 3.30/kg, 40/50 at USD 2.70/kg and 50/60 at USD 2.60/kg. Six weeks on, those three grades are down USD 0.10, USD 0.10 and USD 0.40 respectively. Smaller counts lost the most ground, and smaller counts are where the tonnage is.
Chinese port stocks are the other half of the story. Cargoes that landed between March and May are still sitting in cold stores and capping any attempt to lift offers. Packer representatives quoted in the same monitor said they would hold list prices but concede more on larger volumes, and that there is almost no room left to cut.
What It Means for Buyers
Read the price sheet as a cost problem, not a clearance sale. Ecuadorian packers are absorbing higher energy costs, diesel uncertainty and lost throughput while buyers refuse increases. That combination usually ends one of two ways: a price floor once weak hands exit, or a wave of missed shipments when a plant cannot freeze what it has contracted.
The near-term opportunity is real but narrow. Sellers are signalling flexibility on volume, so multi-container programmes on 40/50 through 70/80 are where the negotiating room sits. Do not expect that on 20/30. Large counts were already thin and the outage did nothing to help yield.
Lead time is the risk to price. If rationing continues into November, throughput at medium-voltage plants stays impaired and sellers who quoted off normal capacity will be late. Build two to three weeks into delivery windows for Q4 arrivals rather than paying for airfreight later.
There is a second-order effect worth pricing in. Feed and processing costs in Ecuador are moving up at the same moment farm-gate returns are moving down. Producers who cut stocking now show up as a smaller 2027 crop, which is a Q2 problem, not a December one.
What to Watch
The next CNA statement and whether the reconnection schedule holds beyond 21 October.
Week 44 and week 45 quotes out of the Qingdao trade fair, where suppliers are expected to test higher offers.
How fast the March to May port inventory clears in China, since that stock sets the ceiling on any rebound.
Ecuadorian plant load rates and whether freeze capacity returns before the year-end shipping cut-off.
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This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of AI and is published for general information only. It does not constitute trading, pricing, or investment advice, and readers should verify all figures against the original sources linked above before making commercial decisions. Content on this page is partly AI-generated. Easy Seafood makes no warranty as to its accuracy or completeness.
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