News

The three Finalists for the 2018 NCWSBA Wool Broker Award gave presentations at the NCWSBA Annual General Meeting and Forum on 23rd August. The three Finalists, Samantha Wan (Elders), Cassandra Baile (AWN) and Candice Cordy (Landmark) all gave fantastic presentations, highlighting the diverse roles of wool brokers and their great contributions. There were around 50 people in the audience attending the AGM and all were hugely impressed. Annabelle Cleeland (Editor, Stock and Land), Ed Storey…

From 2nd July the NCWSBA office will be located at the AWH Wool Selling Centre in Tottenham, here in Melbourne. The new address is Gate 4, 29 Frederick Rd, Tottenham Vic 3012. The new email address will be info@ncwsba.org. Chris Wilcox's email address is chris.wilcox@ncwsba.org. The NCWSBA phone number will be +61 (0)419 344 259.

The Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee (AWPFC) met on Wednesday, 18th April and decided on its updated forecast of Australian shorn wool production for 2017/18 and its first forecast for 2018/19. These forecasts were released on 20th April. The updated AWPFC forecast of shorn wool production for 2017/18 of 338 mkg greasy (a slight 0.6% fall compared with 340 mkg produced in 2016/17) is lower than the Committee’s December forecast of 345 mkg. Seasonal conditions have been much…

Tensions between the US and China broke out into a full-scale trade war this week as the US announced a third round of import tariffs on goods from China. This latest batch imposes a 10% import duty on US$200 billion of goods from China (effective from 24th September). The first two rounds earlier this year imposed 25% tariffs on US$50 billion of goods imported from China. China retaliated each time with its own punitive import duties on US products, such as cotton, soybeans, wine, fruit and…

The 30th Nanjing Wool Market Conference was held in Nanjing, China last. As usual it was very well attended, with around 400 people attending, including a good number of people from outside of China, including from Australia, South Africa, the UK, the US, Uruguay, Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, Japan and India. It was a very interesting Conference. The NCWSBA Executive Director, Chris Wilcox, gave a presentation on the current situation in the Merino wool market titled “Unprecedented”. He…

The Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee (AWPFC) released its new forecast for 2018/19 and its estimate for 2017/18. After considering the industry data, seasonal conditions, and input from the state forecasting committees, the Committee now forecasts shorn wool production at 322 mkg greasy in 2018/19, a 5.7% drop in production. This is lower than its first forecast released in April. The sharp drop in shorn wool production is due to the very dry and drought conditions throughout…

According to the latest data available from the major exporting countries, raw wool exports have increased by 8% in the 2017/18 season to May. This increase been led by a 19% increase in exports from New Zealand and a 22% increase in exports from Uruguay. Both countries this is a rebound from the sharp decline in the 2016/17 season, although exports have still not returned to the levels seen in 2015/16. There was also an increase in exports from Australia (up 5%) and a 2% increase in exports…

AWEX reported on the average price differences paid in 2017/18 for wool with the various mulesing status, compared with previous years. The data shows that the premiums paid for non-mulesed Merino wool at auction in 2017/18 lifted sharply compared with the 2016/17 season. AWEX says that on average there were premiums of 40 to 50 cents/kg for non-mulesed Merino wool of between 16 and 20 microns. This is up from between 15 and 30 cents in 2016/17 and much higher than for any of the previous three…

Data from AWEX on the mulesing status of first-hand wool offered for the full 2017/18 season shows that there was a significant lift of around 20% in the number of bales declared as either Non-Mulesed (NM) or Pain Relief (PR). This increase took the share of NM wool to 11.5%, well above the 9.9% share recorded in 2016/17. The share of PR wool lifted to 31.6%. There was a 9% drop in wool declared as Ceased Mulesed (CM). This may be due to a change in definition for properties to be eligible to…

ABARES (the Australian Government’s agricultural commodity forecaster) recently released its latest forecasts for 2018/19. Its March forecasts were bullish for wool price, and now the June forecasts have been lifted even further. ABARES predicts that the EMI will average 1990 c/kg in 2018/19, up 15.5% from an average of 1723 c/kg in 2017/18. In March 2018, ABARES predicted that the EMI would average 1700 c/kg in 2018/19. So, the forecast annual average has been lifted by 290 c/kg. This is an…

There has been an 11% increase in exports by the five major wool producing and exporting countries for the 2017/18 season to April. New Zealand and Uruguay have seen a very strong increase in exports this season after the dismal declines in 2016/17. Exports from Australia have increased more modestly, exports from Argentina are on par with 2016/17 levels (but have increased strongly in the past few months) why exports from South Africa are down a little. This increase in exports from the five…

Data from the National Wool Declaration to May released by AWEX shows a continued increase in the volume of wool being offered at auction that is either declared as Pain Relief (PR) or as Non-Mulesed (NM). However, there has been a drop in the amount of wool declared as Ceased Mulesed (CM). For the 2017/18 season to May, there has been a 20% increase in the number of bales declared as NM and an 18% increase in the number of bales declared as PR. There has been a small 1% increase in the number…

The Winner of the 2016 NCWSBA Wool Broker Award was announced at the Wool Week dinner in Melbourne on 25th August. The Winner of the 2016 Award is Lachlan Sutton of Elders. In making their decision, the Selection Panel noted they found the calibre of all three presentations to be excellent. They also found it difficult to separate the finalists and that all would be very worthy winners. The Panel noted that some of the most pleasing aspects from the finalists were: their obvious passion and…

The winner of the 2015 National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia’s Wool Broker Award to recognise excellence in wool broking in Australia has been announced. Matthew Thomas of Landmark was selected by the independent Selection Panel as the winner. Andrew Howells of Elders and Todd Clark of Schute-Bell were the other two Finalists. The independent Selection Panel made their decision after the three Finalists gave presentations to at the NCWSBA Annual General Meeting held on Thursday,…