protests and defying a global push away from fossil fuels, Indian conglomerate’s mining arm is preparing to ship the first coal cargo from the Carmichael mine, Australia’s most controversial mine in the recent past. “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 the miner’s Australian subsidiary Bravus Mining & Resources said in a statement. “We have already secured the market for the 10 million tonnes per annum of coal that will be produced at the Carmichael Mine,” the statement added, although it did not say where the shipment was headed.
While the mine was initially planned to be developed with a 400-km (250-mile) rail line for around A$16 billion ($11 billion). The smaller mine now has a 200-km rail line which is built tying into an existing railway, and its cost is estimated at A$2 billion ($1.5 billion). “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 CEO Lucas Dow told Reuters in an email.
Meanwhile, climate experts and environmental campaigners remain concerned over the impact the mine would have on the Great Barrier Reef, water usage and carbon emissions. Their protests turned into a lightning rod at the 2019 election, triggering a battle over jobs versus the environment, which saw the re-election of the coal-supporting conservative coalition government which was initially expected to lose.
