Maersk Pulls Out of Dutch Harbor and Kodiak
Global shipping giant Maersk has hit fishing interests in Alaska with news that it plans to withdraw from two of the state’s ports on its transpacific service network.
As part of its revision of services for the coming year, the liner said it intends to suspend its calls at terminals at Dutch Harbor and Kodiak, two primary export hubs for the $1.5 billion Alaska pollock fishery. The world’s second-largest container shipping company attributed the decision to an “ongoing effort to strengthen our product offerings and maintain reliability in the network.”
According to Maersk, the Danish-flagged container feeder Cape Sorel will carry out the final westbound voyage out of Dutch Harbor on February 11.
Dutch Harbor is one of the largest commercial fishing ports in the U.S., and its exports go to markets in Europe and Asia. In 2022, some 613.5 million pounds of seafood across various species were landed in Dutch Harbor. Kodiak is also a top fishing port, home to a large fleet and multiple canneries. The bulk of the product by volume is pollock, the wildly prolific Gulf of Alaska species used to make fish sticks and other processed products.
Alaska's fishing industry has been hit hard over the past few years due to declines in several key commercial species - notably snow crab, chum salmon and king salmon. Coupled with other economic factors, this has cut the industry's profitability in half since 2021, according to NOAA Fisheries.
Top image: Reefer ships at Dutch Harbor, Alaska (Delta Whiskey / CC BY ND 2.0)