India's Adani Mining said on Wednesday it was rejigging the budget on the A$10 billion ($7.72 billion) Carmichael coal mine project in Australia as it faces delays in government approvals. Adani intends to ship most of the coal from the mine to India for use in generating household power in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's goal to connect all of India to the electricity grid during his tenure. In announcing the setback, Adani also confirmed a media report it had asked independent contracting firms employed on the project to halt work around the mine. A report in the Guardian Australia said it had asked its four engineering contractors to stop operating, raising speculation that the Indian company might scrap the project altogether. "This is only temporary," an Adani spokeswoman, Kate Haddan said, adding a target to commence coal mining in 2017 stood for now. Adani in a statement said the project's current budget based on previous anticipated approval timelines and milestones were no longer achievable due to delays in receiving various approvals from the Queensland state government. "As a result of changes to a range of approvals over that time, it’s necessary to synchronise our budget, project timelines and spending to meet those changes," it said. Adani has signed up buyers for about 70 percent of the 40 million tonnes coal the Carmichael project is due to produce in its first phase. Adani's project mainly hinges on environmental approval to deepen a port on the fringe of Australia' Great Barrier Reef in order to ship the coal, a proposal generating opposition worldwide. An earlier plan to dump 3 million cubic metres of soil dredged at the port of Abbot Point into the sea about 25 km (15 miles) from the Great Barrier Reef was rejected. The Australian federal government must approve the actual channel dredging and the state needs to clear Adani's solution for storing the spoil. A draft U.N. ruling has recommended against listing the Great Barrier Reef as "in danger" but indicated it remains on its watchlist ahead of a final ruling due by the end of this month as it monitors plans for dredging. Eleven of the world’s biggest private investment banks, including Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase, have publicly ruled out providing financing to Adani, citing environmental concerns over the reef and fossil fuel development. The Queensland Department of State Development, which is charged with approving the storage procedure, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Australia's minister for industry and science, Ian Macfarlane, recently said he was confident Adani would build the mine because India was looking for a stable supplier of coal. (Reuters)
Read More
Adani Mining has asked its four engineering contractors working on the Carmichael project to halt work around the mine, the Guardian Australia reported, citing people familiar with the matter. Halting work at this stage of the project made no sense even as a savings measure, and raises speculation that the company might scrap the project altogether, Guardian Australia said. Adani has signed up buyers for about 70 per cent of the 40 million tonnes coal the Carmichael project is due to produce in its first phase, with production expected to begin in late 2017. Guardian Australia said it is understood that about 40 engineers working for one of Adani's contractors, WorleyParsons, were among those pulled off the project. The move was anything but "Adani beginning to run up the white flag" on the project, the newspaper reported, citing a senior engineering industry source. Tim Buckley, a director of energy finance studies, Australasia, at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, which opposes new coal developments said halting work at this stage "just crucifies the project", the newspaper reported. "The minute Adani stops moving forward, the project is just dead, in my view," Buckley said. "And the reason is you’ve got billions of dollars of debt in Australia and they’ve got this interest bill. They’ve been drawing a line in the sand and that is that they need financial close by October 2015." The pressure on billionaire Gautam Adani to make a call on the project included a slump in the world thermal coal price, the Indian government's policy of supporting domestic coal and renewables and Adani’s own financial position, according to Buckley. SMEC, one of the contractors hired by Adani, declined to comment. Adani and its other contractors Aecon, Aurecon and WorleyParsons could not be reached for comment outside regular business hours, Reuters reported. "It's Adani’s practice not to comment on specific commercial arrangements," a spokeswoman for Adani was quoted as saying in the Guardian Australia report. Adani's ambitions in Australia have been uncertain following a surprise election result in Australia's coal-rich Queensland state, leading to a policy reversal, and heightened pressure to protect the Great Barrier Reef.
Read More
In a relief to former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the Supreme Court on Wednesday (1 April) stayed the trial court order summoning him as accused in a case pertaining to grant of Talabira-II coal block in Odisha in 2005 to Aditya Birla group company Hindalco. The stay, which also applied to Hindalco Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, former Coal Secretary P C Parakh and three others, came after senior counsel Kapil Sibal questioned the legality of the summons to the former Prime Minister citing lack of sanction as required under the CrPC and contended that allocation of a coal block was an administrative act without any criminal intent. "We issue notice on all six petitions. The trial court order shall remain stayed," a bench of justices V Gopala Gowda and C Nagappan said after hearing arguments by Sibal, who represented the former Prime Minister, and other lawyers in the case. 82-year-old Singh's daughters, Upinder Singh and Daman Singh, were present in the court during the proceedings. The bench also stayed the proceedings before the trial court and issued notice to the Centre on a plea challenging constitutional validity of section 13 (1)(d)(iii) of the Prevention of Corruption Act. The other three summoned as accused are Hindalco, Shubhendu Amitabh and D Bhattacharya, its officials. All the six were summoned by Special CBI Judge Bharat Parashar to appear before the court on April 8. "I must confess that I have not been able to find out what is the illegal act done by the petitioner in the case," Sibal said at the outset of the 35-minute proceedings. Sibal said it is not an illegal act to allot a mine contending that the administrative acts of the Prime Minister cannot be faulted on the ground that he did not follow the recommendations or procedures adopted by the screening committee. He also referred to the earlier Supreme Court judgement by which all the coal block allocations were quashed on the ground that screening committee procedures were illegal. "The trial court, in its order, says that you did not follow the screening committee and this is contrary to law," Sibal said, adding that the order summoning the PM does not stand the scrutiny of "public reasoning". He also said that the trial court order does not deal with the provisions on requirement of prior sanction to prosecute a public servant under the criminal procedure code (CrPC) and the Prevention of Corruption Act. Referring to the essential ingredients of an offence, Sibal said that "there is no reference of meeting of minds to commit an illegal act by the accused persons". During the hearing, the bench asked the counsel for Singh to satisfy it on provisions relating to grant of sanction to prosecute a public servant. Sibal referred to various Supreme Court judgements and said "even if I am the Coal Minister at the relevant time, I don't lose the status of the Prime Minister who has got plenary power. Everyday, I take decisions as minister and reject the advice, should I be sent to Tihar Jail?". There has to be a meeting of minds to do a criminal act with regard to allocation of Talabira coal mines to a private firm, he said, adding, "Where is the criminal conspiracy? Is it an offence to grant coal mines to a private sector company?" Sibal said a decision may be "right or wrong" but it cannot be said to be an illegal act and the trial court order does not stand the scrutiny of public reasoning. "There was no final allocation. There was no communication of the decision. A decision unless communicated, does not become a decision," he said. Sibal also referred to the December 16, 2014 order of the trial court by which CBI was asked to question the former Prime Minister, and said that "a judge cannot do this. This is not fair. This is maverick." A judge can reject the closure report and may take cognizance of the closure report but cannot decide the nature of the investigation, he said. The former Prime Minister had, on March 25, moved the apex court seeking quashing of the summons against him and stay of criminal proceedings in a CBI court. Singh had sought quashing of the summons on the ground that the March 11 order of the trial court was passed without application of mind. The former Prime Minister had also sought a stay on the criminal proceedings contending that there was no element of criminality in his decisions taken in the capacity of Coal Minister. The plea had said that there was nothing on record to point out that Singh had done any act which may constitute any offence, adding that the former Prime Minister had only taken a decision as a competent authority on allocation of Talabira-II coal block to Hindalco on the representation of Odisha government. The Special CBI court had on March 11 said that prima facie it is clear that the criminal conspiracy which was initially conceived by Birla, Hindalco and its two officials, was carried out further "by roping in Parakh, and thereafter the then Minister of Coal, Manmohan Singh". It had said that Singh's approval to allocate coal block to Hindalco "prima facie facilitated windfall profits" to the private firm resulting in loss to state-owned PSU Neyveli Lignite Corporation Ltd (NLC).(Agencies)
Read More
When the Supreme Court decided to cancel 204 coal blocks, allocated since 1993, the underlying judgment was that in the absence of a competitive bidding mechanism for allocation of natural resources, the decisions to allocate coal blocks to private sector by the successive government were arbitrary. It, however, appears that the latest round of auctions were not so different after all. There is a fresh controversy surrounding the recent cancellation of four coal blocks, won by Jindal Steel and Power (JSPL) and Balco in the auctions held in February, on similar grounds.
Read More
Come March, india Inc. will heave a collective sigh of relief. Twenty-three coal blocks are set to be auctioned, thus ending a stalemate that has lasted close to three years.
Read More
