Market – July 20, 2026
Oceans of Data: vessel movements signal salmon supply shift
Norway exported a record 124,827 tonnes of salmon in June, nearly 20% more than a year earlier, but prices began rising as harvesting activity eased towards the end of the month, according to an analysis by Icelandic data company Oceans of Data.
The company said vessel-tracking data showed wellboat activity across Norway’s salmon-producing regions peaked in week 26 before declining by around 14% through week 28.
Official export volumes followed a similar pattern, falling from 31,652 tonnes in week 26 to 31,235 tonnes in week 27 and 30,356 tonnes in week 28.
However, Norway’s realised salmon export price — calculated by dividing total export value by volume across all products — moved in the opposite direction. It increased from €6.86 per kilogram in week 26 to €6.97 in week 27 and €7.23 in week 28, according to Oceans of Data.
The week 28 figure was 12.1% higher than in the corresponding week of 2025.
“Everyone watches the export number, but that number confirms the past. The boats move first,” Anna Björk Theodórsdóttir, founder and managing director of Oceans of Data, told Salmon Business.
“Wellboat activity across Norway’s production regions peaked in week 26 and eased around 14% through week 28 — we could see the supply turn a week before the official figures printed.
“That’s not a forecast. It’s an observation, and this summer it was a clean one: Norway shipped its biggest June on record, 124,827 tonnes, and the weekly export price rose anyway.”
The movement contrasts with the previous two summers. Across the comparable three-week period, realised export prices declined from €8.11/kg to €7.86/kg in 2024 and from €6.86/kg to €6.45/kg in 2025. This year, the price increased from €6.86/kg to €7.23/kg despite weekly export volumes of around 31,000 tonnes.
Oceans of Data said its “live-carrier signal” is based on stops made by wellboats at Norwegian production sites, providing an indication of harvesting activity before the fish appear in official export statistics.
The company cautioned that the relationship did not demonstrate that changes in wellboat activity had caused prices to move. Product mix, contracts and currency movements can also affect realised export prices.
The €7.23/kg figure is also not directly comparable with the Fish Pool spot price commonly cited by the salmon industry. It represents the value-weighted price achieved across Norway’s salmon exports, including different products and contractual arrangements.
The analysis was based on Oceans of Data’s calculations using official trade figures and third-party vessel-tracking data.
