QUALITY issues with Eastern States' wools due to consecutive very wet seasons and a shrinking national wool clip have made Western Australian wools more important than ever for exporters.
That is the view of Josh Lamb, managing director and a founder in 2017 of Australia's now second biggest wool exporter, Endeavour Wool Exports, which is shortened to EWE on Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) digital sales boards.
On his first visit to Perth since 2018, Mr Lamb sat in on live wool auctions at the Western Wool Centre (WWC) last week with EWE's local buyer Steve Noa.
Mr Lamb and AWN managing director and Dyson Jones Wool marketing services director John Colley were in Perth for an Australian Wool Testing Authority (AWTA) board meeting Friday and industry function last Thursday.
Melbourne-based Mr Lamb is nominee AWTA director for Australian Council of Wool Exporters and Sydney-based Mr Colley is nominee director for the National Council of Wool Selling Brokers of Australia.
Mr Lamb said it was also his first opportunity to catch up with Mr Noa, whom he knew from when they were both wool buyers in Melbourne, since he started buying WA wool for EWE in 2020.
"We employed him just before COVID hit, so we haven't actually been able to catch up face-to-face before now," Mr Lamb said.
Buying WA wools to average against Eastern States' wools was particularly important for exporters trying to meet clients' specification requirements, Mr Lamb indicated.
"Wool selection in the east is pretty ordinary at the moment with all the rain we've had, so WA has become pretty important as far as Merino fleece goes," he said.
"If you are involved in exporting wool to China then you have to be (buying) in WA to make that work.
"With so much rain in the east over the past 18 months, VM (fleece contamination from vegetable matter, but also from caked mud) is a problem.
"WA wools have traditionally been a little bit lower in VM, on average, so we are trying to put (wools from) both sides of the country together.
"Wool rot is really bad, it's particularly (noticeable at the Sydney selling centre) at the moment and there's a lot of heavy colouring wool there because of all the rain.
"It's probably the worst I've seen in 10 or 12 years, it's incredible.
"From a Merino fleece perspective, I'd concede those (Eastern States' quality) issues have made WA wools more important."
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As well, he pointed out a smaller national clip meant there was less choice available at individual selling centres (WWC, Melbourne and Sydney).
"With the smaller wool clip these days, if you are selling Merino wool to anywhere in the world, really you have to be buying wool in WA," Mr Lamb said.
"I think the days of 20-30 years ago, when there was a disparity between centres, has long gone because there's not enough wool any more - you can't afford to concentrate on just one centre.
"I think that's a bonus for WA woolgrowers.
"You can see that in the market now.
"For a lot of years there was always a bit of a discount for WA wools, but more and more you see they are the same (price) level, or pretty close to it and sometimes above the Eastern States for equivalent microns."
Supply chain delays still plagued wool exporters on both sides of the country, but had evolved over time, Mr Lamb said.
Initially, when the pandemic hit, it shut down shipping which disrupted exports, but now the problem was "dumping houses (which compress wool bales together and bind them with steel bands to fit three times as much in shipping containers) and wool industry service providers" were having difficulty coping.
"Fremantle having one dump obviously puts them under pressure and Melbourne had three dumps up until recently and now only has two, so all the exporters are going through the same thing," Mr Lamb said.
"If a ship is cancelled then one of the dumping houses will be left with 10,000 bales of wool for the week and they just don't have the room."
It then took several weeks and several ships to clear the backlog.
"From east coast ports to China (shipping time) is 16-18 days and that hasn't changed much, but transit times to other destinations, such as Europe and India, they've gone from as little as 30-35 days to as much as 60-70 days," Mr Lamb said.
"At our end, before the wool gets to the vessel, the delay has gone from a couple of weeks to four or five weeks."
Mr Lamb acknowledged wool exported from Fremantle generally went via Singapore with the added risk it could be offloaded there and sit on the dock until space became available on a ship on the busier Europe-China run.
He also said most exporters were now "doing something" in the Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) and declared non-mulesed "space".
"You've got to compete - if customers are asking for it (RWS certification) you have to do something and non-mulesed goes into that basket as well," he said.
"There's been a big increase (in RWS wools), particularly this year at the Melbourne centre.
"Sydney has always had a fair bit of it from fine wool growers, but in Melbourne Elders has had a big push on it in Victoria and those medium microns (RWS) have certainly increased.
"If you are non-mulesed already, then you are two thirds of the way to RWS accreditation, so you really shouldn't be ignoring RWS and the premiums that go with it if you are that far along.
"It's not for everybody, but you are doing yourself a discredit if you don't investigate it."
