Fairfax media has reported that Adani has begun sacking about 90 engineers, safety officers and other mining personnel working on the Carmichael mine, raising fresh doubts about the mine’s status. Sources told Fairfax only 20 Adani staff would remain in Brisbane from a workforce of about 100 beyond March 2015.
“Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt must quash the mining licence for this and the other coal mines in the Galilee Basin that were seeking to piggyback off the Adani project,” said Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner, Nikola Casule.
“How many more pieces have to fall off this trainwreck of a project before the Federal Government can see that it’s not going anywhere?”
“Adani has been unable to find the $16.5 million it needs. No major bank will fund the Carmichael project, it’s years behind schedule, and now existing workers who would have built it are being sacked.”
“You have to ask what right-thinking investor could support this ill-conceived plan now,” said Dr Casule.
“Eleven international banks have stated they won’t fund it, Queensland Treasury has called it ‘unbankable’ and coal prices globally are down on the projections Adani were counting on when it began planning.
“There must be no rescue package, no attempt to resuscitate this mine. Federal Environment minister Greg Hunt must now revoke the licence for Carmichael and promise that no taxpayer money, such as the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, be used to prop it up.”
If it was built, the Carmichael mine would require expansion of Abbot Point port, dredging in the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area, put an extra 600 coal ships a year through the Reef and create 121 million tonnes of greenhouse gas a year at full production.
“Until the mining licence for Carmichael and the other Galilee mines are off the table, the Great Barrier Reef remains under threat from the carbon bomb that Galilee would release,” said Dr Casule.
For interview contact
Dr Nikola Čašule Climate and Energy Campaigner
Greenpeace Australia Pacific
Tel: 02 9263 0355
Mob: 0428 769 307