MORE than 1000 bales withdrawn by woolgrowers and brokers prior to last week's sales at the Western Wool Centre (WWC) could not prevent a seemingly inevitable pre-annual sales recess price fall.
While the move - which included 525 bales of Merino fleece, 120 bales of skirtings and 70 bales of oddments withdrawn before the first trading day began - pulled the WWC's offering for the week back to a manageable 9168 bales, it was up against massive offerings in Melbourne and particularly Sydney.
According to Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX) the 55,210-bale national offering last week was the largest in 29 months and the combined 104,070-bale national offering over the first two weeks of the new wool selling program was the largest opening fortnight to a wool season in 18 years.
While the Sydney centre normally offers 2000-3000 bales more than the WWC on an average week, last week - ahead of the annual three-week sales recess this week and for the next two weeks - it offered 19,207 bales, more than double the WWC's offering.
Trading an extra day to clear the volume after the Sydney selling centre and WWC had already closed for three weeks, the Melbourne centre offered almost three times as much as the WWC, with 26,835 bales listed for auction.
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With that much wool for buyers from national traders and export companies to pick through in Melbourne and Sydney - plus the option of 10,161 bales offered on the third day at Melbourne - to find what they needed to complete orders before going on holiday, they did not need to look to the west.
The national offering volume meant it was always going to be a hard sell at the WWC last week.
Also, some brokers did not help the situation by loading up last week's WWC catalogues with wool previously assessed and rejected by buyers.
On the first trading day at the WWC last week, more than one Merino fleece bale in every five was a reoffer.
As a consequence of both the big national volume and the high reoffer content in catalogues, the WWC passed-in rate was 21.5 per cent on the first day.
According to AWEX western technical controller Andrew Rickwood, the finer end of the micron spectrum was "hardest hit by the falling market".
Good-styled 18 and 18.5 micron fleece shed 31 cents and 25c respectively, while next biggest loser, 20 micron fleece, eased 9c.
In the other fleece micron segments losses ranged from 1c to 5c.
On the second trading day only one in 10 fleece bales had been seen before by buyers so the overall passed-in rate came back to 17.9pc.
Again, the finer fleece segments bore the brunt of buyers in holiday mode early, with 18 and 18.5 micron fleece losing a further 19c to finish at 1992c per kilogram and a further 21c to finish at 1836c/kg respectively.
Mid micron segment losses were 5c and 6c, with the exception of 19.5 micron fleece, which added 10c on the day to finish at 1565c/kg as the only WWC wool segment to see a small gain for the week.
Merino cardings dropped 10c for the week to 921c/kg.
The Western Market Indicator finished down 13c at 1473c/kg, which compared to the benchmark Eastern Market Indicator down 19c to 1388c/kg, despite prices firming in Melbourne on the third day.
AWEX statistics show $27 million turnover at the WWC for the first fortnight this season was down $3m on comparable turnover last season, but combined turnover at the Melbourne and Sydney centres was up $3m on last year, so national wool auctions turnover remained the same at $148m for the fortnight.
Local traders PJ Morris Wools and Westcoast Wool & Livestock, along with national trader Techwool, topped the WWC buyers' list both days but in a different order.
