A surprise election victory for Australia\u2019s pro-coal ruling Coalition is ratcheting up pressure on the Queensland state government to approve development in one of the biggest untapped reserves of the fossil fuel. <\/p>\n
Adani Group\u2019s Carmichael coal project is located in Australia\u2019s huge Galilee Basin, which if fully developed, has the potential to more than double Australia\u2019s thermal coal exports. But the project, first proposed in 2010, has been hampered by regulatory delays and difficulty in securing financing amid a passionate environmental protest movement. <\/p>\n
The tide may now be turning. The opposition Labor Party, which fought on a platform advocating tougher action to combat climate change, fared poorly in Queensland, especially in mining communities in the north of the state. Meanwhile, the Labor state government has been accused by the Indian company of putting roadblocks in the way of the project and will itself face voters in 2020. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an issue that they\u2019ve tried to walk a tightrope on for quite some time,\u201d said Chris Salisbury, a professor at the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland, referring to the Queensland Labor party. \u201cIt might be getting to crunch time now.\u201d <\/p>\n
Adani has federal approval to move forward, but the state government has still to sign off on two of the company\u2019s management plans that have been slowed over environmental concerns, with consent required before work on the project can start. <\/p>\n
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk played down Carmichael approval as a contributing factor to Labor\u2019s defeat in the election, in comments to the local media Sunday, but acknowledged that the party needed to focus more on job creation. Labor may risk further erosion of support in areas which rely on the mining industry for jobs if it continues its perceived go-slow on the issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cQueenslanders have sent a very strong message this Saturday,\u201d Adani Australia Chief Executive Officer Lucas Dow said in a video message on the company\u2019s Twitter page. \u201cIt\u2019s now time for the Queensland government to hear that message.\u201d <\/p>\n
Adani still faced significant hurdles in getting Carmichael off the ground, said consultancy Wood Mackenzie. Recent modeling by the group found that, including the cost of a rail link to connect the mine to the existing network, the project needs a benchmark thermal coal price of around $100\/ton to break even. Spot prices for high-quality thermal coal out of Newcastle Port are currently just under $85\/ton. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe think Adani will develop the mine, probably citing the broader benefits of Carmichael in Adani\u2019s integrated mine-port-trading-power model,\u201d said Wood Mackenzie analyst Robin Griffin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A surprise election victory for Australia\u2019s pro-coal ruling Coalition is ratcheting up pressure on the Queensland state government to approve development in one of the biggest untapped reserves of the fossil fuel. Adani Group\u2019s Carmichael coal project is located in Australia\u2019s huge Galilee Basin, which if fully developed, has the potential to more than double Australia\u2019s thermal coal exports. But the project, first proposed in 2010, has been hampered by regulatory delays and difficulty in securing financing amid a passionate environmental protest movement. The tide may now be turning. The opposition Labor Party, which fought on a platform advocating tougher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[131],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-coal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275380","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275380"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275380\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}