British-backed CPC buys another NT station for $47.4m

Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC) has continued to expand its vast portfolio of properties across Australia by buying Vermelha Station in the Northern Territory.

According to documents from the NT Land Titles Office, Vermelha was sold for $47.4 million in a deal understood to include about 15,000 head of cattle and a 2,956-megalitre a year water licence.

The 204,000-hectare station is located near the town of Larrimah, 500 kilometres south of Darwin, and had been owned by Vietnamese investors since 2016.

Owned by British billionaires Guy and Julia Hands, CPC has been on a spending spree over the last few years, acquiring a number of properties including the Beetaloo Aggregation in the Northern Territory for more than $300 million and Australia's largest sheep station Rawlinna in Western Australia.

According to CPC's website, the company's asset base now exceeds $1.7 billion and runs more than 400,000 head of cattle, 50,000 goats and 150,000 sheep "across more than 6 million hectares of land", plus feedlots in Indonesia.

CPC becomes major water licence holder

CPC is one of Australia's largest cattle companies and is on track to be the Northern Territory's biggest irrigator.

Its acquisition of Vermelha Station and its 2,956ML water licence takes the company's overall groundwater licence holdings in the Northern Territory to 18,524ML per year, including:

• Powell Creek — 480 ML/year
• Dungowan — 4,738 ML/year
• Newcastle Waters — 3,060 ML/year
• Tandyidgee — 7,290 ML/year
• Vermelha — 2,956ML/year

Speaking to ABC Rural in August, after receiving water licences for Powell Creek, Dungowan, Tandyidgee and Newcastle Waters, CPC chief executive Troy Setter said the plan was to use water to grow crops for cattle.

"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," he said.

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

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

Mr Setter said the irrigation developments would be done through a staged approach and he hoped the first pivots could be installed next year.

The water licence at Vermelha has been under-utilised, with water currently used for one 45-hectare pivot irrigator and 60 hectares of cleared land.

However the station does have a clearing permit for 3,659 hectares.