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Wool stocks soar
7 Apr 2004
The wool stockpile has reached one million bales as producers store their wool in the wake of falling prices. Australian Wool Handlers, which handles 60 per cent of the clip, has 600,000 bales of unsold wool in store and says other handlers and brokers would be similarly affected.
AWH's reports are at variance with the latest AWEX official stockpile figure of 697,056 bales as at February 29.
AWH's GM Craig Findlay said in 2003 the average time for a bale to be held in store was 70 days, but this year it's running at 112 days. Brokers said the latest build-up in southern stocks is in the middle to broader micron wools from the Riverina and South Australia. Prices for the broader wools, 22 to 24 micron, have been hit the hardest over the past six months: they've fallen by 25 per cent to last week's indicator quotes of about 750c/kg clean, with many low-yielding Riverina wools battling to get a bid of $4.40/kg greasy.
But despite the rapid build-up, exporters and brokers are not particularly concerned, saying stockpiling is a feature of the "new order of wool marketing".
Weekly Times, 7/4/04, page 3.
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