May 23, 2011

Peru's Copeinca posts increase in operating revenues

Peruvian fishmeal and fish oil producer Copeinca SA has communicated that its 2010 operating revenues have increased to US$233.04 million from a 2009 figure of US$203.16 million.

The company's EBITDA rose from US$59 million in 2009 to US$76.2 million.

"2010 was a very important year for COPEINCA, in which the restructuring of the utilisation of its assets and the first part of its two-year investment plan of US$80 million was successfully completed, which will allow us to fully take advantage of the benefits of the Individual Transferable Quota system (ITQ) approved by the government in 2008," said Samuel Dyer, CEO and Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Copeinca.

"In 2011 the company will operate with only 26 vessels, out of which 75% have refrigeration systems (RSW), five plants with 100% Steam Dried (SD) capacity and around 1,400 collaborators," said Dyer.

The company has promised its shareholders to achieve an improved EBITDA of 30-40% as compared to the previous regime, thanks to the aforementioned new efficient measures and to normal fishing quota volumes, according to Dyer.

"Volumes were significantly lower due to both a moderate 'El Niño' and 'La Niña'; nevertheless, the quality of production and yields had an important increase when compared with 2009," said Dyer. The Peruvian Ministry of Production´s Fishing Vice Ministry (PRODUCE) had moved to authorise the start of the fishing seasons later than usual in order to ensure the sustainability of the biomass. The ministry also reduced the first fishing season quota and suspended the second fishing season even though only 36% of the quota had been caught at that time.

Copeinca explained that those measures bred significantly lower volumes and therefore inferior sales and that were partly offset by higher selling prices. 

In 2010, average prices for fishmeal and fish oil hit record levels of around US$1,400 per tonne for both fish oil and fishmeal and reached peaks of some US$2,000 per tonne. The high prices came as a result of an earthquake in adjacent Chile in February last year and lower fishing quotas for Peru.