The Mekong River

By MARGIE MASON for The Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam — As the Gulf Coast oil spill continues to gush, U.S. seafood suppliers are turning to Asia to ensure Americans have enough shrimp for their gumbos, Creoles and cocktails this summer, but some of those overseas cupboards are low themselves.

Several countries in the world’s top shrimp-producing region are struggling to satisfy their own appetites for shrimp because of disease, drought and the economic crisis. The oil spill is one more factor driving prices skyward, sending a worldwide ripple through an already tight shrimp market.

The price of plump black tiger shrimp is at a 10-year high in Vietnam, selling for around $13.50 per kilogram ($6.14 per pound), said Bui Dung, a manager at Minh Phu, Vietnam’s biggest shrimp exporter in the southern Mekong delta province of Ca Mau. He said heat waves along with disease outbreaks have led to smaller yields on farms. Domestic consumption has remained high, nibbling away at cold stocks normally available for export prior to August harvests.

“The demand, particularly from the U.S., is huge,” Dung said. “We receive order requests from U.S. importers almost everyday, but we cannot meet all their demands.”

Americans have an insatiable craving for shrimp, eating about 4 pounds (1.8 kilograms) a year. And while wild Gulf shrimp provides only about 7 to 9 percent of that supply, the oil spill will likely send some U.S. restaurants and super markets into a short-term frenzy, said Fatima Ferdouse, chief of trade promotion at Infofish, an intergovernmental organization for the Asia-Pacific fishery industry based in Malaysia.

“It backfired because in the American market, they planned to sell … this much domestic shrimp from the Gulf for summer, which they’re not getting now,” she said by phone. “So they have to fill in the gap. They panic and then the easy way to get it is to go through import — they don’t have any other choice.”

According to Infofish, wholesale shrimp prices have risen by about 15 to 20 percent since a BP-operated oil rig exploded 10 weeks ago, causing an undersea blowout that has spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

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