The latest British Wool auction held in Bradford recorded a clearance rate of 90% of the 1.248m kilos offered.

A total of 180 of the 199 lots offered sold. This was an improvement on the last sale, where the clearance rate was recorded at 73%.

The average greasy price was 89.5p/kg or the equivalent of €1.07/kg.

This represented an increase of 13% on the last sale, but the report indicates this was mainly due to the the mix of wools offered, with the British Wool index remaining within 1% of the last sale at 1.171.

Uniform

It is worth noting that the price recorded is for wool which has been sorted, graded and packed in uniform batches.

Producer prices are linked to the average greasy prices, but a deduction ranging from 35p/kg to 40p/kg is extracted for processing, marketing, etc.

There has been 19.3m kg of this season’s clip now traded

This week’s British Wool sale was number 18 of the 20 rostered sales for the 2021 season. There has been 19.3m kg of this season’s clip now traded, which is equivalent to 84% of the anticipated supply.

British Wool will hold one sale in May and one sale in June. British Wool anticipates that, going on sales performance to date, there will be minimal carryover of wool into the 2022 season’s clip.

Predicted prices

Market prospects for the trade in 2022 remain largely unchanged.

There may be a slight bounce in demand due to higher oil prices likely to put upward pressure on synthetic prices, but this is expected to be minor in the short term.

Therefore, it is not envisaged that prices will change significantly and industry sources predict that prices for lowland wool in Ireland will remain in the region of 20c/kg for lowland wool, while black or grey Scotch wool is expected to continue to struggle, with prices in the region of 5c/kg.