The final British Wool sale of the 2021/2022 season took place on Tuesday 5 July. There were 205 lots offered, with a total weight of 1.129m kilos of wool.

This included 154 lots of old-season wool amounting to 713t and 51 lots of new-season wool weighing 416t.

The sale recorded an 88% clearance rate, amounting to 991t across 182 lots.

British Wool reports price trends following a similar pattern to the last two sales. Wool described as better coloured was firm to dearer, while poor-colour wool or end-of-season lots were described as being in buyers' favour.

The average price of greasy wool increased by 4% on the last sale to 85p/kg, while the annual price index increased by 0.6% to 1.156.

The company reports that the last sale of the season brings the season to a close, with 98% of the year’s supply, or 22.6m kilos of wool, traded.

The remaining volume of old-season wool will be offered over the first sales of the 2022/2023 season, where new-season wool will dominate the sales offering.

Price unchanged

Meanwhile, there is no change in wool prices in Ireland. Grey/black Scotch wool is selling for as little as 5c/kg, with white Scotch wool 5c/kg to 10c/kg higher and lowland wool selling in the main for 20c/kg on average.

Demand globally for wool continues to be hampered by Chinese buyers purchasing significantly lower volumes of wool.

Reports indicate than in addition to the textile industry remaining under pressure due to COVID-19, many wool processing businesses have ceased operations due to a combination of COVID-19 hitting their businesses hard and fresh environmental regulations increasing the cost of processing.