It was another strong week for physical wool auction sales last week, and online offerings were also in demand.

The Australian Wool Exchange Eastern Market Indicator (EMI) increased for its third consecutive week.

It was up 72 cents a kilogram by the close of trade on the first day of selling on Wednesday and put on another 17c/kg on Thursday.

The indicator finished the week at 1291c/kg, which was US985c/kg.

Strong confidence from the trade continues to be the market driver.

It is the healthy competition from Chinese buyers that is predominantly injecting positive signals.

At the back-end of last week, there was some slowing of demand at the Fremantle auction centre.

Prices in the west experienced a 37c/kg loss on Thursday.

Looking ahead, there are an expected 44,826 bales to be offered at physical wool auctions this week.

On the online front, the AuctionsPlus offer board has had a very busy week.

There were 4859 bales sold and the busiest day was last Wednesday, when 2236 bales were cleared.

Across the categories, 15-micron wool reached up to 2005c/kg (greasy), or 2747c/kg (clean), and 16-micron wool sold up to 1905c/kg (greasy), or 2588c/kg (clean).

There were 739 bales of 20-micron wool that sold online during the week to a high of 1010c/kg (greasy), or 1358c/kg (clean).

The top price on the offer board for the week was achieved by two lines of Merino lambs fleece and Merino fleece offered by Jemalong wool for 2005c/kg (greasy).

These lots had fibre diameters of 15.4 and 15.5-micron, respectively, vegetable matter of 0.5 and 0.3 per cent, respectively, and were branded 'Finchley/Craigie'.