Adani's mine, rail project in Australia to produce 8,500 direct, indirect jobs

Businessman Gautam Adani's Carmichael mine and rail project in Central Queensland, Australia, will generate around 1,500 jobs, the company has claimed. The company said the project will be 100 per cent 'self-financed' through the Adani Group resources. However, reports say the company dramatically thinned down its original project plan to make it fully self-financed and avoid any investment risk. The Queensland mine project was earlier considered worth $16.5 billion, but eight years of legal hurdles and the company's failure to secure private funding forced Adani Mine to change strategy.

Several groups had opposed the project citing it would encourage more mining activities in Australia's Galilee Basin that has vast coal reserves. "We will now begin developing a smaller open cut mine comparable to many other Queensland coal mines and will ramp up production over time to 27.5mtpa," Adani Mining CEO Lucas Dow said.

Unlike its previous plan of producing 60 million tonnes coal a year, the company will now produce 10 million tonnes, which could go up to 28 million tonnes. The revised project cost is estimated at around $2 billion. All coal produced in the initial ramp-up phase will be consumed by the Adani Group's captive requirements, said the company.

The project will give direct jobs to 1,500 people and indirect employment to around 7,000 people in Australia, the Sunday Morning Herald reported, adding that this is lower than the company's earlier promise of creating 10,000 jobs in the area.

Adani Mine is in the last phase of finalising the required management plans of the mine site before the coal production starts. "The process is expected to complete in the next few weeks," the company shared with the stock exchanges.

The Adani Group has been working on the mining project for the past eight years in Australia. "We expect Adani Mining will be treated no differently than any other Queensland mining company," Dow said, adding that the construction and operation of the mine will begin soon.

The Australian government is investigating the Adani Group for polluting Great Barrier Reef.  "We've minimised our execution risk and initial capital outlay. The sharpening of the mine plan has kept operating costs to a minimum and ensures the project remains within the first quartile of the global cost curve," Dow said.

He informed the company has invested $3.3 billion in Adani's Australian businesses. "We will now deliver the jobs and business opportunities we have promised for North Queensland and Central Queensland, all without requiring a cent of Australian taxpayer dollars." In addition to jobs in Australia, the Carmichael coal plant will be a power source to improve living standards in developing countries, said Dow.

Edited by Manoj Sharma