Adani gives 'green light' to $16bn Carmichael coal mine

Extract from The Guardian

Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Adani officially announce the company’s intention to invest in the proposed Galilee basin mega-mine

Gautam Adani took a shot at critics of the proposed Carmichael mine as he announced Adani’s Indian parent company had given the go-ahead for the mine. Photograph: Sam Panthaky/AFP/Getty Images

Joshua Robertson

Tuesday 6 June 2017 12.25 AEST Last modified on Tuesday 6 June 2017 12.26 AEST

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani has given the “green light” to the Carmichael mine and rail project, but it will still hinge on its Australian arm, Adani Mining, gaining bank backing for the contentious venture.
The Adani group chairman took a dig at “activists who sit in creature comfort and criticise us” while trumpeting the decision to invest in Australia’s largest proposed coalmine.
The company is yet to secure its bid for a $900m infrastructure loan from the federal government.
Adani said the “final investment decision” by Adani Mining’s Indian parent marked “the official start of one of the largest single infrastructure – and job creating – developments in Australia’s recent history”.

He said the company was delivering on its promise to “address power poverty for hundreds of millions in India and unacceptably high unemployment in regional Queensland”.

“To those activists who sit in creature comfort and criticise us, I ask a simple question – what are you doing for those people?”
Adani said the company was committed to “the largest single investment by an Indian corporation in Australia” despite opposition from the environmental movement.
“We have been challenged by activists in the courts, in inner city streets, and even outside banks that have not even been approached to finance the project,” he said.
Adani noted the company was “still facing activists”.
Julien Vincent, the executive director of environmental finance group Market Finance described the announcement as “little more than a PR stunt”.
“Announcing an intention to invest is a far cry from having the finance to do so,” Vincent said.
He said the Indian parent company Adani Enterprises, with estimated net debt of $2.5bn, was “yet to raise a single cent of the $5bn required to capitalise the project”.
But Adani had little choice but to pursue the project because “failure would mean a write-down equivalent to around half the value of the company”, he said.
The premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, told reporters in Townsville, where Adani opened its regional headquarters on Tuesday, she was “very pleased” with the announcement.
“What we are seeing with the opening of this office, is a real presence on the ground here in Townsville, and a strong signal that this project is committed to regional Queensland,” she said.
More to come...

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