Irrigators were adopting a “wait and see” approach to the coming season, following a further small rise in the availability of high reliability water shares (HRWS), according to a Griffith broker.
Keywater director Anthony McCloskey said it was still early in the season.
“Perhaps it’ll be September and October when we see people turn up their intentions, with water for summer crops,” Mr McCloskey said.
“Buyers are positioning themselves to cover what they may need to cover and waiting to see what happens from here.
“Sellers are waiting to see if it stays dry.”
Meanwhile, the Northern Victorian Resource Manager Dr Mark Bailey has announced a slight increase in the 2017/18 seasonal determinations.
The Murray system increased from 66 per cent to 70pc of HRWS, while the Goulburn and Loddon system both jumped from 40pc to 45pc.
The Campaspe system remained unchanged at 100pc HRWS.
The Broken system increased from six pc to 15pc HRWS, while the Bullarook system increased from 32 per cent HRWS to 100pc, plus 35 per cent of low‑reliability water shares (LRWS).
Rainfall in early August was the main contributor to the increase in seasonal determinations.
“The rainfall in early August produced the best flows into the storages, so far this winter,” Dr Bailey said.
“The changes that have been announced are in line with the new flows we have seen, but we are still tracking for it to be relatively dry for this time of year.”
Dr Bailey said it was hard to tell what forecast rain, this week, would do for storages.
“There’s been a lot of carryover this year, but not everyone was able to make use of it, given their circumstances,” he said.
“We were anticipating quite a strong demand at the start of the season, but the rain quelled that demand quite a bit.”
He said demand was probably down 60-70pc on what was expected.
The season now runs until May 15, 2018.
