Companies Adani to build Australia’s biggest coal mine, initially using own funds BL PREMIUM

Launceston — Adani Enterprises’ decision to start building Australia’s biggest coal mine would appear at face value to be a straightforward announcement that a major project is finally getting underway. The Indian conglomerate said on August 28 that it will start work in October on the Carmichael coal mine in Queensland state, initially using A$400m ($317m) of its own funds. There is no reason to doubt Adani intends to do exactly what it said it was planning to do by starting to build the $4bn mine, with a goal to ship coal by 2020. But there are several reasons to be sceptical about the timing of the announcement, and perhaps about its motivations. It would be a brave board of company directors that approved spending hundreds of millions of dollars when there is still considerable uncertainty over the future of the overall project. The Carmichael is slated to cost $4bn in just its initial phase, consisting of a 25-million tonne-a-year mine and a near-400km railway to an existing ex...