- Wednesday, February 26, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
INDIA’S Adani Group is all set to ship the first cargo of coal from Australia’s most controversial mine after fighting a seven-year-old campaign by climate activists and overlooking a global call against using fossil fuel.
The Carmichael mine in Australia’s Queensland province is likely to be the final thermal coal mine to be built in that country which is among the world’s biggest coal exporters. It will, however, be a vital source of supply for importers such as India, Reuters reported.
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“The first shipment of high-quality coal from the Carmichael mine is being assembled at the North Queensland Export Terminal in Bowen ready for export as planned,” a spokesperson for Adani’s Australian subsidiary Bravus Mining & Resources informed in a statement.
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The statement, however, stopped short of revealing where the cargo is headed, except that “we have already secured the market for the 10 million tonnes per annum of coal that will be produced at the Carmichael Mine”.
When Adani purchased the project in 2010, it set up a vision for building a 60-million-tonne-a-year mine with a rail line measuring 400 kilometres (250 miles) for around $11 billion, one of the many projects in the then untapped Galilee Basin.
In 2018, it shrank the mine plan to 10 million tonnes a year in the wake of a sustained ‘Stop Adani’ campaign by green outfits that left lenders, insurers and major engineering firms scared, the Reuters report added.
“That sharpening of the plan has kept operating costs to a minimum and ensured the project remains within the first quartile of the global cost curve,” Adani’s Australian chief executive officer Lucas Dow told Reuters in emailed comments.
The company is yet to disclose the cost of the smaller mine and a 200-kilometre long rail line it built while tying into an existing railway, but the project has been estimated at $1.5 billion.
“It is quite a celebration because this is going to be the last true greenfield thermal coal mine in Australia,” Lloyd Hain, managing director of consulting firm AME Group, said.
Green activists, who are concerned about carbon emissions and potential damage to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – both from global warming and dredging at Abbot Point port – saw several cases challenging the government approvals for the controversial mine.
The campaign became a lightning rod in Australia’s last election in 2019. The coal-supporting conservative coalition was re-elected to power even though it was expected to lose.
