A tender for the strategic water rights purchasing of 44.3 gigalitre per year (GL/y) by the Australian Government to deliver the Murray–Darling Basin Plan was held between 23 March 2023 and 19 May 2023 and has now concluded.
The Australian Government sought tender responses that offered water rights for purchase in 6 catchments across New South Wales and southern Queensland through a competitive, open and transparent tender.
These catchments were:
Queensland
- Condamine–Balonne: 14 GL/y of surface water and 3.2 GL/y of groundwater
New South Wales
- NSW Murray: 10 GL/y of surface water
- Namoi: 9.5 GL/y of surface water
- NSW Border Rivers: 5.1 GL/y of surface water
- Barwon–Darling: 1.6 GL/y of surface water
- Lachlan: 0.9 GL/y of surface water
It was a competitive field with around 250 tender responses received across the basin in response to this tender.
We started accepting water offers in the relevant catchments to help Bridge the Gap in August 2023. We have now concluded this tender process.
Tender outcomes
All offers were carefully reviewed to ensure they represented value for money. Tenders were evaluated on their ability of the water to contribute towards bridging the gap, environmental utility, as well as cost and other financial factors. All tenderers have been notified that the tender is now complete.
All Sale Agreements have been finalised with 21.62 GL/y recovered from the tenders. 21.22GL/y of this contributed to bridging the Gap, after accounting for an incidental over recovery of 0.4GL/y in some basins.
We have published final outcomes, and the average price paid per water type, now that the contractual process has concluded.
The Australian Government remains committed to bridging the gap to SDLs. We will continue working with Qld and NSW to consider a range of market options to secure the remaining volumes.
You can view the updated trading strategy that describes the approach to recovery of the remaining volumes.