BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) will continue to play a role in addressing the challenge of limited water in Queensland, aiming to make more water available for other users.
Part of BMA’s targets includes setting a milestone to make unutilised BMA water allocations available for the temporary water trading market each year.
This target began in the 2023–24 financial year and focuses on the Fitzroy Basin as the second largest seaward draining basin in Australia.
“We worked closely with the team who manages our relationship with bulk water supplier, SunWater, and the water broker to complete the water trades and temporary transfer to other users such as irrigators,” BHP manager water planning Bonny O’Neal said.
Through strong collaboration efforts, BHP teams were able to develop a process to quickly assesses water volumes that can be made available to the water market against the needs of BMA’s operations.
These teams also assess the water allocation needs of BMA operations regularly and, where possible, unused water allocations will continue to be made available to the market to contribute to social value.
As of February 2024, BMA had traded 1.5GL of water allocations on the Queensland water marke.