The first wool sale of the year last week in Napier saw a large offering of wool where prices improved from levels seen at Christmas. There were 15,000 bales sold and that was a good sign that there's plenty of demand out there. At the moment, it is a bit of a level and looking forward to see further gain in wool prices, Elders Primary Wool national wool manager Simon Averill said.

The best style crossbred fleeces made 535c per kilogram, average fleeces made 495c and poorer fleeces sold for 435c. Averill hoped values would lift higher as the effects of demand outweighing supply became more prominent. He hopes to see that there is less wool around than what people have predicted and that might help drive the price up.

Last year's drought had resulted in farmers killed their ewes and this had created a shortage of wool