Thai shrimp exports are still being hit hard by increasingly high freight rates and several monsoon storms in recent weeks, which is why raw material prices are constantly rising, according to frozen seafood supplier Siam Canadian Group’s latest market update.

Freight rates are still strong, making it very difficult to get any space confirmation, it said. Thus, some liners do not offer services to ports like Chicago, Houston, San Francisco or Jacksonville, all in the US.

“There are only available freight services to Los Angeles and New York, with prices between $13,000 and $21,000 to the first and between $13,000 and $18,000 to the latter,” it added. “However, it is tough to get space for this price, and some exporters are paying over $25,000 to guarantee it as demand is going up for Christmas celebrations.”

Additionally, congestion at the destination ports is also pushing the price up, with the latest information saying more than 50 ships are piling up at the California gateways of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

“The situation might slightly relieve when all shipments for Christmas and New Year celebrations end,” Siam Canadian said. “However, the price will not go down to levels seen during the previous year. Instead, prices will hang at these high levels until summer 2022.”

Raw material prices have gone up across all sizes, with 100- and 70-count shrimp prices significantly moving up as large sizes supply has slowed down due to several monsoon storms hitting shrimp farms.

“Several monsoon storms have hit Thailand in the past few weeks and we expect more to come,” the company said. “The shrimp farmer would not risk their crop to get damaged by heavy rain, so they will harvest what they already have in the ponds to prevent losses. It could get as worse as it was back in 2011.”