Progress of water recovery under the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program
The aim of the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin (RtB) program is to provide more water for the environment, which can be used to protect and restore Basin river systems and wetlands. To date, the RtB program has secured the purchase of more than 4,100 individual trades.
Purchases so far have been primarily made through open market tenders. Information on the criteria used for making the decision to purchase these entitlements can be found in the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin fact sheet.
The information in the table below has been updated to reflect the details of purchases secured through exchanged contracts recorded as at 31 December 2011. Further updates will be made as additional contracts are exchanged.
The table summarises the water purchases made through the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin program, including the purchase of Toorale Station (Barwon-Darling and Warrego catchment) water entitlements. Some points to note regarding this purchase information are:
- It is not possible to gauge the average annual volume of water that will be recovered in each catchment by just considering the entitlement volumes that have been purchased as the long run average water yield varies across both catchments and entitlement types. To account for these variations in reliability, estimates are also provided of the annual volume of water that is expected to be available for environmental use, for each entitlement type in each catchment. These figures are calculated using the Department's estimates of long term reliability, as advised in the Murray-Darling Basin Ministers' Communique of 4 November 2011.
- Average price paid per trade is calculated over the life of the program. Information on average prices paid in the most recent tenders can be accessed on the Restoring the Balance in the Murray-Darling Basin page. The difference between the average price over the life of the program and prices paid in the most recent tenders is due to changes in market conditions while the program has been operating.
| Catchment | Entitlement Type | Secured Purchases (ML) | Secured Entitlement Purchases - Average Annual Yield (ML) | Other Purchases - Average Annual Yield (c) | Average price paid per trade ($/ML)(b) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Northern Basin | Gwydir | General security | 88,520 | 31,867 | 2,239 | |
| Supplementary | 19,101 | 3,629 | 1,045 | |||
| Condamine Balonne | Unregulated | 6,635 | 6,635 | 1,700 | ||
| Intersecting Streams(inc NSW Warrego)(a) | Unsupplemented | 8,106 | 8,106 | N/A | ||
| Namoi | General security | 6,203 | 4,776 | 2,050 | ||
| Macquarie-Bogan | General security | 57,631 | 24,205 | 1,268 | ||
| Supplementary | 1,888 | 397 | 161 | |||
| QLD Border Rivers | Medium Priority | 6,832 | 2,255 | 2,276 | ||
| Barwon-Darling(a) | Unregulated | 22,273 | 22,273 | 836 | ||
| Southern Basin | Ovens | High reliability | 50 | 48 | N/A | |
| Goulburn-Broken | High reliability | 177,278 | 168,414 | 43,188 | 2,092 | |
| Low reliability | 10,286 | 3,600 | 7,783 | 196 | ||
| Loddon | High reliability | 2,476 | 2,352 | 1,823 | ||
| Low reliability | 644 | 174 | 200 | |||
| Campaspe | High reliability | 6,366 | 6,047 | 2,174 | ||
| Low reliability | 395 | 194 | 173 | |||
| Murrumbidgee | High security | 103 | 98 | 2,400 | ||
| General security | 147,230 | 94,227 | 960 | |||
| Supplementary | 20,821 | 2,915 | 218 | |||
| NSW Murray | NSW General security - above choke | 175,439 | 142,105 | 1,217 | ||
| NSW General security - below choke | 40,546 | 32,842 | 1,151 | |||
| NSW High security - below choke | 2,636 | 2,504 | 2,140 | |||
| VIC Murray | VIC above Choke - High reliability | 53,606 | 50,926 | 15,790 | 1,949 | |
| VIC below Choke - High reliability | 150,158 | 142,650 | 28,936 | 2,095 | ||
| VIC above Choke - Low reliability | 5,406 | 1,297 | 2,354 | 193 | ||
| VIC below Choke - Low reliability | 5,762 | 1,383 | 3,947 | 199 | ||
| SA Murray | SA High security | 88,142 | 79,328 | 2,132 | ||
| Lower Darling | General security | 492 | 399 | 949 | ||
| Disconnected Tributaries | Lachlan | High security | 733 | 733 | N/A | |
| General security | 81,671 | 34,302 | 683 | |||
| TOTAL | 1,187,429 | 870,680 | 101,998 | |||
| TOTAL LONG TERM AVERAGE ANNUAL YIELD |
972,678 | |||||
Notes:
All average annual yield figures in this table are calculated using SEWPaC's estimates of the long term average share of the diversion limit associated with each entitlement. It was advised in the Murray-Darling Basin Ministers' Communique of 4 November 2011 that these would be used to determine how much of the 'gap' between the Baseline Diversion Limit (BDL) and the Sustainable Diversion Limits (SDL) has been 'bridged' through purchase and infrastructure projects.
(a) The Intersecting Streams row data includes the water entitlements acquired from Toorale Station.
(b) The average prices displayed are not necessarily an indicator of the current price the Australian Government is willing to pay for water entitlements. This is because the prices the government is willing to pay for water entitlements are adjusted according to factors such as market price movements, reliability of entitlements, expected environmental benefits and the cumulative volume of purchases that have been made in each catchment. The average prices displayed reflect consideration of these factors at the time applications were accepted, which may be some months prior to the time contracts were exchanged.
(c) This includes the water agreed for purchase from the Victorian Government related to the NVIRP project. The water to be purchased in this transaction is specified in average annual yield terms