Temporary Transfers

Temporary Transfers

Our customers benefit from water trading and can perform temporary transfers on our online customer service portal Sunwater Online 24 hours a day.

Sunwater sells its available allocations on the temporary trade market each year via our water broker. Sunwater’s water broker is Ruralco Water who will trade our allocations via the online platform Water Exchange. To obtain access to seasonal allocations for the 2021-22 water year, check the Water Exchange web site.

Water Exchange is available for public use and we encourage all customers to consider utilisation of this platform for your own trading activities.  Ownership details are not listed on the platform so trading activities are confidential, however pricing and volume data is made publicly available for relevant scheme’s which reference the requirement in their interim and resource operation licences (IROL and ROL).  This publicly available data is listed here.

Sunwater is a strong advocate of increasing water market transparency in order to promote both trading and better utilisation of water throughout the state, and we hope that moving our trading activities to a publicly available platform will assist in achieving this goal.

For any enquires relating to water trading using the Water Exchange platform please contact Ruralco Water.  For any enquiries regarding your water accounts, as always you can access your information at Sunwater Online or call customer support on 13 15 89.

For your local conditions, please refer to this table.

To apply for a transfer, please complete our temporary transfer form.

Sunwater Temporary Trading Strategies

Water year: 2021-22

Sunwater’s available allocations are now available to trade on the Water Exchange platform. Available volumes for the water year are tabulated below.

Scheme	ROP Zone	Priority	2020-21 Trading Volumes
Bowen Broken Rivers	Bowen Broken Zone C	High-A1	50
Burdekin Haughton	Burdekin Zone C	High	10,000
Julius Dam	Zone 1	High	7,000
Lower Fitzroy	Fitzroy A – Fitzroy Barrage to US limit Fitzroy Barrage	High	100
Pioneer River	P01, P01, Teemburra 1	High-A	12,280
Proserpine River	Proserpine Zone A	High-A	10,458
Upper Burnett	BWPL Zone SB	High	10
	GY / GB / NA / NB / MA / NC / OA / OB / OC / SA / SB	Medium	2,613

Volumes shown in the trading strategy below are nominal volumes approved October 2021 for the water year. All volumes are subject to announced allocations and if the announced allocation for a scheme is less than 100% then the full nominal volume will not be available to the water trader, only the volume equal to the current announcement. If the announced allocation increases during the year the additional water will be transferred to the water trader at the time of the current announcement.

Service standard for processing temporary transfers

The Council of Australian Governments (COAG) has adopted the below service standard for processing times (that is, for the approval or rejection of trades).

Service Standard

Intra-state; 90% of allocation trades processed within 5 business days

Performance against this standard reported for period: 1 July 2021 to 30 April 2022

Allocation trade (temporary trades) processing time from 1 July 2021	Performance against Service Standard	Intended Service Standard
Intra-state trades – % of trades processed within 5 business days	97%	90%
Number of Intra-state trades	2,113
Volume of Intra-state trades	326,780.545 ML

Temporary transfer of carryover water

Customers may temporary transfer carryover water as it is a personal product. If doing so, customers (the transferor) should note that:

• in specific conditions, carryover can be cancelled—these conditions are outlined in the terms and conditions section of the carryover application form for relevant schemes, found here.
• quarterly water loss factors may be applied and are also outlined in the carryover application form
• if carryover is cancelled or quarterly loss factors are applied, the transferor’s water account may go into a negative balance which may need to be reported to the regulator. This breach will need to be remedied through the purchase of temporary transfer water to bring the account out of a negative balance.

Customers must be aware of the multiple factors and risks associated with temporary transferring carryover water. Examples have been developed to demonstrate the risks of transferring carryover and provide visual representation of what a customer account may look like if carryover is cancelled in a carryover-eligible water supply scheme.

As this is a complex water accounting calculation, we strongly encourage customers considering a transfer of water inclusive of carryover contact customer support on 13 15 89 Monday-Friday, 8:30am-4:30pm to discuss their options.

Recommended water brokers

For assistance with purchasing or selling water on a temporary basis (via temporary transfer) or a permanent basis (via property transfer), visit the Purchase/transfer page here.

More information

Sunwater Customer Support
Phone: 13 15 89
Email: [email protected]