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🇦🇺 Australia /Economy & Trade

British-backed CPC buys Northern Territory cattle station for $47.4 million

From ABC Australia · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources New plan
  • Consolidated Pastoral Company bought the 204,000-hectare Vermelha Station near Larrimah in Australia’s Northern Territory for $47.4 million.
  • The deal includes about 15,000 cattle and a 2,956-megalitre annual water licence, lifting CPC’s Northern Territory groundwater holdings to 18,524 megalitres.
  • CPC plans to expand irrigation and grow crops such as sorghum, hay and cotton to support its cattle operations.

Consolidated Pastoral Company has added another vast Northern Territory property to its expanding Australian portfolio, buying Vermelha Station for $47.4 million.

Documents from the Northern Territory Land Titles Office indicate that the deal includes about 15,000 head of cattle and a water licence allowing 2,956 megalitres a year. The 204,000-hectare station lies near Larrimah, about 500 kilometres south of Darwin, and had belonged to Vietnamese investors since 2016.

We've been dryland cropping on those [Barkly] stations for a couple of years now, growing sorghum, hay and also a bit of cotton when the market was right.

· Troy SetterThe CPC chief executive described the company’s existing cropping activities.

CPC is owned by British billionaires Guy and Julia Hands. In recent years, it has bought properties including the Beetaloo Aggregation in the Northern Territory for more than $300 million and Rawlinna in Western Australia, Australia’s largest sheep station. The company says its assets now exceed $1.7 billion and cover more than 6 million hectares, with more than 400,000 cattle, 50,000 goats and 150,000 sheep, as well as feedlots in Indonesia.

So the plan is to develop some of that farming land for irrigation.

· Troy SetterSetter outlined CPC’s plan to expand irrigated agriculture.

The Vermelha purchase also makes CPC a major holder of water licences in the Northern Territory. Its total groundwater entitlements now reach 18,524 megalitres a year, including licences at Powell Creek, Dungowan, Newcastle Waters, Tandyidgee and Vermelha.

CPC chief executive Troy Setter said the company planned to use the water to develop irrigated cropping for its cattle operations. The station currently uses the Vermelha licence for a 45-hectare pivot irrigator and 60 hectares of cleared land, although it has permission to clear 3,659 hectares. Setter said the irrigation projects would be developed in stages, with the first pivots potentially installed next year.

It will give us the opportunity to have more consistent cropping and consistent production which will flow to higher productivity [for our cattle operations].

· Troy SetterHe explained the expected effect of irrigation on cattle production.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Australia in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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