Wool mill plans driven by appetite for domestic processing

It comes as the second stage of a report into the feasibility of boosting domestic wool processing capabilities is due to get underway.

A small-scale wool mill tourist attraction on South Australia's Kangaroo Island is coming closer to fruition, with the retail store component expected to open in July.

Kangaroo Island Wool general manager Sophie Clarke said the facility will have three components- a wool scour, a spinning plant, and a production plant making garments.

"Tourism will play a vital role in our success, we are creating an experience that will include a 360 degree film shown in a nine metre igloo dome, then visitors are guided inside the mill to see first-hand how we make our garments from end to end," she said.

"We don't know our output volumes yet, we need to test and measure the capacity of our machines over the first 12 months."

"We are hopeful to be at full production within a few years."

Ms Clarke said products from the company, which is owned by wool growing families on the island, are already well sought after but the mill will give them a chance to bring production in-house.

"Provenance of our product is incredibly important; we will track the origin of our fleece through to finished garment," she said.

"As most of our farms are within 40km from the mill the miles travelled are incredibly low.

"And when you think of the mileage of any kind of production within Australia or overseas, most of it has travelled a long way so that's a fantastic story we're excited to promote."

In Victoria, Geelong will soon become home to a fibre manufacturing facility operated by Planet Protector Packaging, a company that creates insulated packaging using crossbred wool.

The facility is expected to open in the final quarter of this year and will have the ability to process one tonne of wool an hour using airlay technology.

Planet Protector Packaging CEO Joanne Howarth said once operational, the facility would allow the company to commercialise new products, including wool building insulation.

"There was an 18-month lead time on getting the equipment out of Europe and in the next two weeks it will ship," she said.

"The equipment is being shipped in 28 forty foot containers and it's going to be a 2000 square metre footprint inside the warehouse with next level capability to process all sorts of different natural fibres.

"So many different organisations across Australia are equally frustrated with the lack of manufacturing capability that we have experienced for the last six years."

Ms Howarth said the facility would open up to contract manufacturing, in addition to creating its own products.

"We're setting up in Geelong because Geelong has got one of only two remaining woolscours in the country," she said.

"The wool scour in Geelong will scour all the wool and then send it across to us ready to manufacture."

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Meanwhile still in the planning stages, the QWool proposal for Blackall, Queensland is based around establishing a woolscour and later a topmaking facility.

The proposal harks back to the town's historical steam-driven woolscour, which operated from 1908 until 1978, and remains as a tourist attraction.

Blackall Tambo mayor Andrew Martin said QWool had secured a number of investors from across the country and were talking to a number of overseas interests.

"We've struck an agreement to purchase some land and a water licence in Blackall, and a bore therefore... we're progressing towards concluding that deal later on this year," he said.

"This is an eventual $200 million proposal and it could double the population of Blackall in the long run."

Cr Martin said high global transportation costs for wool make the Blackall project stack up well economically.

"A boatload of raw wool to China pre-COVID was $9000 a day," he said.

"A boatload of raw wool going to China mid-COVID was $152,000 a day if you could get it loaded and get it to the wharf and get it unloaded... that's come back quite considerably but it's not back to $9000 and will never get back to $9000 a day to hire a boat to cart raw wool, so why would you not take the lanolin and the dirt out of en route to say Vietnam?

"Scour it in Blackall then over to Gladstone or straight up and out of Darwin into Vietnam and on way its way to northern Europe."

Cr Martin said they had received interest from parties from Italy, France, Bangladesh, Thailand, Vietnam and China.

"It's just slower than we expected... it's a large program and it requires outside-the-box thinking," he said.

"It doesn't come easily if it's worth having."