Six to eight months ago, on a monthly basis, they were buying low 20 per cent, February figures show them at 34, he said.
The PGG team was still seeing a marked difference between the best types of wool and the poorer styles driven by demand and also supply, Edwards said.
They were also seeing a lot more yellowing wools.
On an achieved greasy price, the good-type-to-best was around 210 to 250 cents, with average styles around 185 to 200, and poorer styles with more colour are 150 to 180, Edwards said.
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Mackay highlighted the greasy wool price as this was before the wool has been scoured, he said this was a big issue, as one of the biggest scours in the country was in Napier and had been taken out by Gabrielle.
Mackay said he’d heard that getting wool scoured in the North Island was now taking three months which was creating issues around wool storage before it could be scoured.
Edwards agreed, and said that about 92 per cent of New Zealand’s wool was exported and about 80 per cent of that was washed before it went.
Edwards couldn’t give any indication as to when the Napier scour would be operational again.
He said it was a shame that around 35,000 bales of wool were in storage there and would now be water damaged and have to be destroyed.
The real challenge for the supply chain will be to fill that gap.
