Tanner crab fishermen are still standing down 13 days after the season opened Jan. 15, citing no local processor has yet offered them a fair price.

The United Salmon Association (USA) is currently holding negotiation talks, but not making any progress, fishermen said Wednesday.

USA announced Monday the expansion of its membership base to include all fishermen with a valid state or federal permit.

This change is due to the request of the Kodiak crab fleet for USA to represent them in contract negotiations with potential crab buyers.

“(The stand down) is due to the extreme difference in price comparison between offers for Tanner crab in Kodiak and what was actually paid for Tanner crab in Dutch Harbor,” according to a statement released by USA. Crab in Kodiak have traditionally brought a higher price than in Dutch Harbor.”

They have notified all local processors of the need for preseason written contracts that address everything from advance price to product quality.

“We’re waiting for a processor to give us a price. We’ll accept any offer for discussion in contract form,” said USA negotiating team member Bill Fiorentino.

“We would prefer to sell the crab locally. We want to keep it in the community — keep our own processors going and keep our own workforce doing something.”

He said they received offers from local processors, but not in contract form.

Ocean Beauty and Alaska Pacific Seafoods offered $1.50 per pound and Trident Seafoods and Alaska Fresh Seafoods offered $1.85. The fishermen have their sights set on $2.25 a pound.

“We’re not really in a stand-off with the local processors,” Fisherman Alexus Kwachka said. “Nobody can come up with a price because of the buyers. There’s a lot of speculation of what is going on.”

The Tanner fishermen have a couple of offers on the table from companies that are home-based in Dutch Harbor and are in current negotiations with those companies. They are not ready to release the names of the companies or the particulars of the offers. Traditionally, Tanner crab has been sold locally.

“There is a potential deal in Dutch Harbor, but we’re trying to keep our crab on-island if we can,” Kwachka said.

Fisherman Mark Alwert said, “I do know they are willing to come to Kodiak with tenders and tender our crab back to Dutch Harbor to process them at — or near — our asking price. But since it is still in negotiations, it is all up in the air.”

The fleet is concerned about where the crab will go to be processed in the future with the possibility of Gulf crab rationalization. If Dutch Harbor companies receive individual processor shares (IPQs), and come to Kodiak and establish the history of buying crab here, that may pave the way for the majority of future crab catches processed by regulation in Dutch Harbor, Alwert said.

“All indicators show that our quotas are only going to go up,” he said. “Right now, our main goal is to establish our bairdi Tanner crab separate from the opilio crab in the Bering Sea, and to negotiate with our local processing community and get these crab processed here. We want to get the guys fishing as soon as possible with a fair price and a fair start clause. We all voted in a fair start clause.”

Alaska Pacific Seafoods, Ocean Beauty Seafoods, Western Alaska Fisheries, Alaska Fresh Seafoods and Trident Seafoods have currently or in the past purchased crab. Global Seafoods North America is in the process of getting permits to buy crab this year.

“The real conflict for us is the disparity in price between Unalaska and Kodiak,” Kwachka said. “They paid $2.60 in Dutch Harbor this year and they’re offering us $1.50 at one plant and $1.85 at another — it’s a big difference.”

Jim Major, a manager at Alaska Pacific Seafoods said the price difference is due to the size of the crab in the two regions and market demand.

“The Tanner crab on Kodiak Island are not the larger, platter-type they have in the Bering Sea. The (worldwide buyers) have quite a bit of small stuff left over from last year in different parts of the world. They’re just not ready to buy.”

Finding buyers for Tanner in the United States is also a hard sell, said Major, adding domestic market buyers prefer the lower-priced opilio, or snow crab.

“It’s been so long since we sold domestic, the domestic people have been used to opilio so you’d almost have to create a new domestic market as they have not had any Tanner crab for years,” Major said.

Last year’s Tanner crab price for Tanner crab offered in Dutch Harbor was $3.05 and $2.55 in Kodiak, he said.

Other processors could not be reached for comments.

The Tanner fishery lasts until the guideline harvest levels are reached or until the fishery ends March 31.

Mirror writer Deanna Cooper may be reached via e-mail at dcooper@kodiakdailymirror.com.