What happened this week: The period between mid-December and mid-February is becoming more and more difficult to handle. The end of the year in Europe is dominated by a higher kill, followed by a production break of almost two weeks. Asian producers then wind production down to take their vacation from the end of January until mid-February. Consequently, the two main absorbers of European hides are now taking a much longer production break within a time frame of only 4-6 weeks. This leads to a certain accumulation of salted raw material which has been made even more pronounced this year by the fact that the seasonal kill is high and demand is not as buoyant as it was in 2005 or 2006. As a result, a decent amount of salted material in certain grades is still circulating the trade. As a counterbalance, we are now facing the normal seasonal drop in the kill and the usual bottlenecks in the fresh material supply, in particular for bull hides, is now starting to occur.

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