Exporters battle to secure wool as market begins to open up

THE wool market opened tentatively after the three-week winter break, but gained momentum to close higher.

The Eastern Market Indicator lifted 9 cents to close at 1990 cents a kilogram clean, against an offering of 49,500.

Landmark north east regional wool manager David Hart said it wasn’t unexpected that the market opened softer on Tuesday last week.

“The general feeling on Tuesday was that the market hadn’t started as badly as expected and then confidence lifted,” Mr Hart said.

He said microns finer than 19.5 all gained ground.

One of the biggest gains was 18.5 micron which lifted 74c/kg.

“The finer end was up 30 to 40 cents, the medium wool up by 10 cents and the broader wool was back by 10 to 15 cents,” Mr Hart said.

He said in the north the drop in broader microns was due to very dusty low yielding wool.

“That drop should ease as we get the winter fleeces in later this season — they will defray the sheer quantity of lower quality wool.”

Mr Hart said exporters were struggling to find enough higher yielding wool for Chinese mills.

He said 37,000 bales were scheduled for this week and he expected that figure to slip away in the coming weeks in what was traditionally a busy time.

“It’s due to the drought — in some areas production is dropping 30 or 40 per cent,” Mr Hart said.

“The drought is still raging and feed prices are very high.”

Mr Hart said with low supply and demand still high the wool prices should stay steady or lift. It was a big week for Graham and Cheryle Supple, of Ocean Grove, who saw their last ever wool clip being sold last Thursday.

The couple sold 116 bales averaging 20.6 microns, from August 2017 shearing, after retiring from their farm at Paradise, St Arnaud, six months ago.

“We were extremely happy with how our wool sold,” Mr Supple said.

“Our clip was non-mulesed and fairly long, between 118 and 133 millimetres, which definitely helped in the current market.”

Mr Supple said they had approached the week after recess with some apprehension, but the low pass-in rate indicated steady prices.

“We were a bit worried after Tuesday’s sale when the 20-micron slipped about 20 cents and the 22-micron slipped 50 cents, but the market definitely consolidated on Wednesday,” he said.