Mackay said that while New Zealand’s market for strong crossbred wool was in the “doldrums”, he’d heard from his Aussie correspondent Chris Russell that things were looking up for fine wool across the ditch.
Edwards mentioned a sale in Christchurch yesterday where there were about 13,000 bales across New Zealand for market, with crossbred wool holding value with some good final prices. He said Merino had an especially good season which was starting to come to an end.
“We had quite a few half-breed hoggets’ on the market yesterday as well. Of course, these are generally all in the South, but they were well sought after, and we’ve got an Australian buyer that tends to buy through one of the exporters.”
This local exporter who was at the Christchurch sale, “helped shunt things along,” he said.
Mackay said wool was not the only commodity “facing headwinds” as the world was “probably heading towards recession”, which wasn’t great for commodity prices.
However, there was an upside for exports - freight costs were starting to realign post-Covid, Mackay said.
Edwards agreed. He gave an example of the costs of a 20-foot container two years ago - around US$3500 to get transported out of China into Europe - which then jumped to US$12,500. Now, he reckoned it was coming back down to around US$4,500-$5000.
Prices were also going up for energy, Edwards said. One of his overseas customers’ price per MW had jumped from 17 to 270 Euros.
“In the same token, they’re looking at other ways that they can offset those,” he said.
This included putting heat pump cores into the ground which will heat to about 13-14 degrees or perhaps even using wind power, he said.
Mackay asked Edwards about the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand (WRONZ) AGM held earlier in the week.
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Unfortunately, Edwards was not able to attend, but he had heard really positive feedback from staff who were able to go.
“They did set up a pilot plant around a year ago to reconstitute the fibre and what they’re doing and what they’re being able to do with it, it’s just growing and growing.”
The fibre particles could be used in flame proofing, and - because wool is a protein - they could be used in digestible, he said.
Wool could also be utilised in pharmaceuticals pigments, Edwards said.
“They can even re-spin a 35-micron fibre down to about a 12.”
Edwards said the team was really pumped up and getting a lot of overseas enquiries – largely from pharmaceutical companies - which was a real positive, moving forward.
“The world needs sustainable energy, and it needs sustainable products, and there’s no more sustainable product than wool,” Mackay said.
