A couple of months ago, Adani looked set to defy economic logic, popular opposition and the urgent reality of climate change. Before Queensland’s election campaign began, the prospect of Adani receiving a $1 billion public bailout from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) loomed large.
It then emerged that Adani had been in discussions with China Machinery Engineering Corp (CMEC) about its possible involvement in the Carmichael mine. In CMEC, Adani had a prospective engineering partner, but also an investor and one that would open doors to Chinese financial institutions providing credit.
Adani even had the Australian government on its side, providing assurances to the Chinese embassy that everything was tickety-boo with the proposed mega coal mine and rail complex.
All of a sudden there was a plausible – albeit absurd on many levels – pathway that Adani might find to secure the billions of dollars it needed for the Carmichael mine to proceed. And then it all fell to pieces.
A week into the Queensland election campaign, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk committed to vetoing Adani’s NAIF loan, a promise that became her first act once re-elected. Then, one by one, major Chinese banks ruled out participating in the project.
For the rest of this column: http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/adanis-mega-mine-its-not-over-yet-20180109-h0fh1q.html