Market surge: Murray River water right price up 30 per cent

Murray River water entitlements prices have jumped 30 per cent in five weeks. See why.

Water aplenty: Murray River allocation water prices have dropped to $80 a megalitre as dams spill, but entitlement prices are heading up.

Cashed-up farmers have pushed the price of Victorian below-choke Murray River water entitlements up by 30 per cent in the past five weeks, with larger parcels selling for $8000 a megalitre.

Australian Water Brokers Association vice-president Anthony McCloskey said he expected most of the buyers were farmers, rather than corporate players.

“There’s a bit of money around and not as much entitlement coming onto the market,” Mr McCloskey said.

The NSW Water Register shows family farming operations snapping up the water, with brokers saying corporates Kilter and Duxton weren’t buying at that price.

But while RuralCo’s water exchange shows that while prices have been high, at $7800/ML to $8000/ML, only a few parcels have changed hands.

Where the Darling River meets the Murray. Picture: AAP/Dean Lewins

Select Harvest managing director Paul Thompson said he was frustrated by the high water price and could not understand why it had surged so quickly.

“You couldn’t invest in water to establish a greenfields almond venture at $8000/ML”, he said.

In the meantime US registered company Aqua Ceres is seeking sophisticated investors to pump at least $500,000 each into Australian water entitlement purchases.

The company’s website states “investing with Aqua Ceres in Australian water enables investors to invest in water directly without direct exposure to many of the usual operational and production risks associated with farm ownership”.

The Aqua Ceres Australia Water Offshore Fund LP is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and has directors in the US and Australia, including Wealthcheck director Sam Mitchell.

In 2015 The Weekly Times reported Mr Mitchell was the director of Harvard University subsidiary Rosella Sub TC, which received warning letters from the NSW Government after it ploughed up Aboriginal burial mounds and cleared native vegetation on a 17,500ha property west of Hay – Newmarket Station – it was converting to irrigated cotton production.

In one of the letters issued to Mr Mitchell the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage stated it found “six occupational mounds were harmed” and the activity undertaken by Rosella Sub TC “was not defendable”.

Mr Mitchell did not respond to requests for comment from The Weekly Times in regard to his latest venture.

NSW water broker Tom Wilks has also joined the Aqua Ceres team.