Skip to main content

Adani coalmine delayed? Australian senate fails to pass crucial "reform" amendment for project's financial closure

Adanis' Mundra power plant, controversial in Australia
By Our Representative
In what is being described as a new “new hurdle”, the proposed Adani coalmine in the Queensland state of in Australia failed to get the crucial Australian Parliamentary nod, essential for financial closure for one of the biggest coalmining projects in the world. The government lost the Senate vote 35-33, meaning the legislation won't pass until the Senate returns in mid-June.
The Australian Parliament was to pass “critical reforms to native title laws, designed to remove a key obstacle to the project going ahead”, but the crucial vote was postponed. Following the defeat, Attorney-General George Brandis moved to suspend the Senate's schedule.
In India last month, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull promised Gautam Adani, chairman of the powerful Adani Group, known to be close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that he would deliver the reforms to Australia’s native title regime to ensure that the Adani “could secure an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with Traditional Owners.”
“In failing to secure the important legal change, Adani continues to be unable to move to financial closure. The Carmichael project in Queensland is yet again delayed, and remains in limbo seven years after the top Indian business group acquired the project proposal and promised first coal by 2014,” said Tim Buckley from the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
While Australian Resources Minister Matt Canavan has told the Australian media that this “does put into question [Adani’s coal] project. It does mean [Adani] will have a delay in their final investment decision”, Labor leader Bill Shorten, following the vote, said his party would support the laws when they would come for vote in mid-June.
However, Greens senator Rachel Siewert accused the government of ignoring issues with the proposed changes."They want to rush this through so Adani can go ahead with their dirty coalmine," she said.
"Though the failure of the Senate to pass the amendments today will mean some delays in some early works, the company remains on track to make the crucial financial decision this month," an Adani spokesman said.
The legislation amendments the Native Title Act to resolve legal uncertainty around more than 120 indigenous land use agreements relating to major projects, including the $21 billion Carmichael mine.
Meanwhile, the powerful Australian environmental lobby opposing the coalmining project has begun to make the Adani threat to close down the Mundra power project in Gujarat following the Supreme Court disallowing any revision in the price at which the power is to be sold an example to show why the Australian coalmining project is not viable.
“The admission by Adani Power’s management this week that the 4.6GW Mundra Power Plant is not able to viably produce electricity from expensive, imported coal is another serious obstacle to this Carmichael coal proposal ever reaching financial close”, said Buckley.
“Not only does this require a US$600m write-off of contingent revenues previously booked, but it calls into question the stranded asset risks associated with the entire 4.6GW US$5bn capital investment”, he insisted.
“The latest solar tariff result this week for the Bhadla solar park in Rajasthan at a record low Rs2.62/kWh continues to call into question the strategic and commercial viability of any proposed coalmine premised on ongoing Indian thermal coal import demand, a strategy clearly out of alignment with the Government of India’s stated strategy for zero thermal coal imports,” Buckley insisted.

Comments

TRENDING

Junk food push causing severe public health crisis of obesity, diabetes in India: Report

By Rajiv Shah  A new report , “The Junk Push: Rising Consumption of Ultra-processed foods in India- Policy, Politics and Reality”, public health experts, consumers groups, lawyers, youth and patient groups, has called upon the Government of India to check the soaring consumption of High Fat Sugar or Salt (HFSS) foods or ultra-processed foods (UPF), popularly called junk food.

Insider plot to kill Deendayal Upadhyay? What RSS pracharak Balraj Madhok said

By Shamsul Islam*  Balraj Madhok's died on May 2, 2016 ending an era of old guards of Hindutva politics. A senior RSS pracharak till his death was paid handsome tributes by the RSS leaders including PM Modi, himself a senior pracharak, for being a "stalwart leader of Jan Sangh. Balraj Madhok ji's ideological commitment was strong and clarity of thought immense. He was selflessly devoted to the nation and society. I had the good fortune of interacting with Balraj Madhok ji on many occasions". The RSS also issued a formal condolence message signed by the Supremo Mohan Bhagwat on behalf of all swayamsevaks, referring to his contribution of commitment to nation and society. He was a leading RSS pracharak on whom his organization relied for initiating prominent Hindutva projects. But today nobody in the RSS-BJP top hierarchy remembers/talks about Madhok as he was an insider chronicler of the immense degeneration which was spreading as an epidemic in the high echelons of th

Astonishing? Violating its own policy, Barclays 'refinanced' Adani Group's $8 billion bonds

By Rajiv Shah  A new report released by two global NGOs, BankTrack and the Toxic Bonds Network, has claimed to have come up with “a disquieting truth”: that Barclays, a financial heavyweight with a “controversial” track record, is deeply entrenched in a “disturbing” alliance with “the Indian conglomerate and coal miner Adani Group.”

Modi govt intimidating US citizens critical of abuses in India: NY Christian group to Biden

Counterview Desk  the New York Council of Churches for its release of an open letter calling on the Biden administration to “speak out forcefully” against rising Hindu extremist violence targeting Christians and other minorities in India. In the letter addressed to President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and other major elected officials, the NY Council of Churches expressed "grave concern regarding escalating anti-Christian violence" throughout India, particularly in Manipur, where predominantly Christian Kuki-Zo tribals have faced hundreds of violent attacks on their villages, churches, and homes at the hands of predominantly Hindu Meitei mobs.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

Link India's 'deteriorating' religious conditions with trade relations: US policymakers told

By Our Representative  Commissioners on the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) raised concerns about the “sophisticated, systematic persecution” of religious minorities by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a hearing on India in Washington DC.

Green revolution "not sustainable", Bt cotton a failure in India: MS Swaminathan

MS Swaminathan Counterview Desk In a recent paper in the journal “Current Science”, distinguished scientist PC Kesaven and his colleague MS Swaminathan, widely regarded as the father of the Green Revolution, have argued that Bt insecticidal cotton, widely regarded as the continuation of the Green Revolution, has been a failure in India and has not provided livelihood security for mainly resource-poor, small and marginal farmers. Sharply taking on Green Revolution, the authors say, it has not been sustainable largely because of adverse environmental and social impacts, insisting on the need to move away from the simplistic output-yield paradigm that dominates much thinking. Seeking to address the concerns about local food security and sovereignty as well as on-farm and off-farm social and ecological issues associated with the Green Revolution, they argue in favour of what they call sustainable ‘Evergreen Revolution’, based on a ‘systems approach’ and ‘ecoagriculture’. Pointing ou

A Hindu alternative to Valentine's Day? 'Shiv-Parvati was first love marriage in Universe'

By Rajiv Shah*   The other day, I was searching on Google a quote on Maha Shivratri which I wanted to send to someone, a confirmed Shiv Bhakt, quite close to me -- with an underlying message to act positively instead of being negative. On top of the search, I chanced upon an article in, imagine!, a Nashik Corporation site which offered me something very unusual. 

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Jharkhand: Attempt to create red scare for 'brutal crackdown', increase loot of resources

Counterview Desk  The civil rights group Forum Against Corporatization and Militarization in a statement on plans to crackdown on “64 democratic progressive organisations” in Jharkhand under the pretext of the need to investigate their Maoist link, has alleged that this an attempt to suppress dissent against corporate loot and create an authoritarian state.