(file image) Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Wool storage in the North Island is almost at full capacity and, with the new season of shearing now underway, it is expected things will get worse.
Woolworks Awatoto wool scouring plant has been out of action since it was severely damaged during Cyclone Gabrielle in February.
The company's other scourers at Clive and Timaru have been working full tilt to get through all the wool, but the bales are stacking up and storage is getting tighter.
PGG Wrighton North Island wool manager Allan Jones said the Awatoto site was set to open in February, which would be relief for wool exporters who had been sending their wool to Timaru and Clive at extra cost.
"They hope to have Awatoto up and going with a trial running the middle of January, so when that gets going, that will ease the pressure on wool in the wool stores, because that will get through a bit, but there's still quite a lot of wool to be caught up on," Jones said.
"There's no space available really until about February now, for scouring, so as long as we can keep moving a little bit to the scourer over the next month or so, we should hopefully get through before the season really kicks in and we do run out of room."
Jones said scourers would have to work through about 500-1000 bales a day to make room for what was coming in now.
The only relief recently was that shearers were about two weeks behind in the North Island due to wet weather, he said.
"Storage is starting to get probably a bit more serious now as we start to get towards Christmas, because the main ewe flock is being shorn now - that's when weather's permitting," he said.
"But of course, we're holding a lot of wool in the wool store from previous sales that's been sold that's waiting to be scoured at a later date."
East Coast Shearing spokesperson Beau Guelfi said gangs were struggling to find their rhythm with consistent wet weather holding things up.
"We've got heaps of staff, heaps of young guys we've trained up, and they're keen as to get to work, but it's just a matter of getting some sunshine, getting the sheep dry and we can take care of business. But the rain is really buggering things up for us."
