CCRAP and the Adani Group

Adani Mining Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of India's largest coal trader the Adani Group, intends to dig an enormous hole in the ground costing over $16 billion and the odd billion or two it can extract from gullible federal and state governments in Australia.

This hole known as the Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project will comprise six open-cut pits and five underground mines; supported by five mine infrastructure areas, a coal handling and processing plant, a heavy industrial area, water-supply infrastructure, 189-kilometres of rail line (Adani has applied for a $1 billion loan from the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund to build the rail link), as well as off-site infrastructure including a workers' accommodation village and airport.

All of this running roughly parallel with the Great Barrier Reef and the Abbott Point port required to ship all this coal overseas at considerable risk to fresh water security, coral sustainability and marine biodiversity.

http://envlaw.com.au/carmichael-coal-mine-case/

To facilitate its aim of environmental vandalism for corporate profit the Adani Group has registered the following companies which are all currently operating out of an office tower in Eagle Street, Brisbane:

Abbot Point Operations Pty Ltd

Adani Abbot Point Company Pty Ltd

Adani Abbot Point Holding Trust

Adani Abbot Point Terminal Holdings Pty Ltd

Adani Abbot Point Terminal Pty Ltd

Adani Australia Coal Terminal Finance Company Pty Ltd

Adani Australia Coal Terminal Holdings Pty Ltd

Adani Australia Coal Terminal Pty Ltd

Adani Australia Company Pty Ltd

Adani Australia Holding Trust

Adani Minerals Pty Ltd

Adani Mining Pty Ltd

Carmichael Rail Finance Company Pty Ltd

Carmichael Rail Holdings Pty Ltd

Carmichael Rail Network Holdings Pty Ltd

Carmichael Rail Network Holdings Trust

Carmichael Rail Network Pty Ltd

Carmichael Rail Network Trust

Carmichael Rail Pty Ltd

Carmichael Rail Pty Ltd

Galilee Transmission Holdings Pty Ltd

Galilee Transmission Holdings Trust

Galilee Transmission Pty Ltd

Mundra Port Holding Trust

Mundra Port Holdings Pty Ltd

Mundra Port Pty Ltd

Juice Media put this mocking video together to let the Adani family and the world know what many people in this country think of this mining scheme.

https://youtu.be/n_C8S4Bz91M

Thanks to Simon Chance for this link

Published on Dec 4, 2016

The Australian Government just released this advert about the proposed Carmichael Coal Mine and it's surprisingly honest and informative. 

6 WAYS YOU CAN HELP STOP CCRAP:

1. Tell PM Malcolm Turnbull you don't want your tax dollars to be used to subsidise CCRAP: https://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/gr...
2. Join GetUp!'s Fight for the Reef: https://fightforthereef.getup.org.au
3. Donate to the Wangan & Jagalingou defense fund: http://wanganjagalingou.com.au/donate
4. Follow the Wangan & Jagalingou on Facebook to keep up to date with the campaign to stop CCRAP on their lands: https://www.facebook.com/WanganandJag...
5. Find out more about the Wangain & Jagalingou traditional owners: http://wanganjagalingou.com.au
6. Share this video.☛ CREDITS: Written & created by Giordano. Performed by Matylda. Voice by Lucy. Thanks to Adso, Kajute, Miriam, Anthony, Adam, Benna, Damian, Dave and Dbot for helping out! Photos and Footage of Wangan & Jagalingou people used with permission from Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council. ☛ Please SUPPORT the Juice Media to help us make more videos: https://www.patreon.com/TheJuiceMedia

BACKGROUND

Financial Review, 6 December 2016:

Challenges:

Finance – There is a reason the Galilee Basin has been left undeveloped for the past 50 years. For a start, it's close to 500 kilometres from ports on the coast, meaning whoever is going to build the project has to outlay billions of dollars to get the project built. And the quality of the coal is not as good as others in the closer Bowen and Surat Basin.

India's Adani Group also has to find $10 billion to finance the project. There are also questions raised about whether the project is economically viable after a plunge in the coal price following the end of the coal boom. But even though the price of thermal coal has recovered to above $100 a tonne in recent months, it is less relevant because Adani is using the coal for its own power stations rather than selling to other customers. The Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis director Tim Buckley – a vocal critic of the project – says Adani's parent company is struggling with current market capitalisation of equity at $US1.1 billion, against which it has net debts of $US2.4 billion.

Environmentalists – Adani's Carmichael project has become the lightning rod for anti-fossil fuel activists and environmentalists who want to stop the building of any new coal mines in Australia. It also fits into the narrative about Australia's changing energy mix – from one dominated by coal and gas to renewable energy such as wind and solar. Environmentalists claim the extra coal exports will damage the World Heritage-protected Great Barrier Reef, although it has received environmental approval from both state and federal governments. As the Turnbull government releases its 2017 climate review this week, the argument over the Adani mega-mine also ties in with the debate about whether Australia,- which has one of the largest emissions per capita,- should be building another large coal mine that will release more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Well-funded and media-savvy environmental groups have also been very effective in targeting banks about lending to the Carmichael mine. Some banks, under pressure to make sure they look like good corporate citizens, have promised not to lend to any future coal mines.

Legal activism – One of the reasons the project has been progressing at a snail's place the past seven years is because environmental and Indigenous groups have used the legal system to their advantage and challenged virtually every aspect of the project. The mining lease, environmental authority, and native title have been challenged by a range of parties, including the Australian Conservation Foundation, little-known group Coast & Country as well as Indigenous group, the Wangan and Jagalingou. They have successfully held up the project, resulting in the former Abbott government threatening to change the laws to make it harder to challenge big mining projects.

Last month, two legal challenges were thrown out of court, leaving three appeals – two before the full bench of the Federal Court over the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act and native title, and there is also a judicial review of Adani's port expansion at Abbot Point which has been brought by local residents in the Whitsundays – before the project can be given the green light.

Scandal  – The Adani Group has been plagued by allegations of corruption surrounding its projects in India. Adani Group chairman Gautam Adani is one of India's richest men, whose personal wealth was valued at $7.1 billion in 2014 by Forbes magazine. There have been allegations of environmental vandalism in relation to the development of the Port of Mundra, which is owned by Adani, as well as claims of tax evasion. Adani's Australian chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj has also been dragged into the scandal by failing to disclose his history running a mining company in Africa that pleaded guilty to serious economic harm. So far, none of these allegations have failed to bring down any of Adani's executives, but it adds to the controversy over the project.

UPDATE

ABC News, 21 December 2016:

Giant Indian conglomerate Adani, which plans to build one of the world's largest coal mines in Queensland's Galilee Basin, has set up a complex network of companies and trusts in Australia which are owned in one of the world's major tax havens, the Cayman Islands.

The Adani Group is also attempting to shift ownership of the existing Abbot Point coal port — which it bought for $1.8 billion — to a Singaporean company ultimately owned in the Cayman Islands.

An exhaustive search of company filings and documents across the globe has cast light on this opaque structure of ownership and control.

It has alarmed environmental activists and legal experts, who fear it could make it harder to gain compensation from Adani in the event of an environmental disaster from Adani's planned mine and port expansion on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef.

"I've been a businessman for most of my life, as well as an environmental activist, and the risks are great," said Geoff Cousins, former Optus CEO and chairman of the George Paterson advertising agency, now a board member of the Australian Conservation Foundation.

"With these kinds of approvals of big mining operations or port operations, you always get a set of conditions that the Government puts on.

"But those conditions aren't worth anything if, when something goes wrong, you try to find the company responsible and either it has no money or if it has money it's in a tax haven and you can't reach it."

It is a view echoed by David Chaikin, a professor of business law at the University of Sydney.

"The advantage of having the money in tax havens is that you are able to conceal the source of money, the use of money, and also to minimise tax," he said…..

Adani has created four companies and two trusts in Australia for the rail project.

The parent company for all these entities is Carmichael Rail and Port Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd, a company registered in Singapore where the corporate tax rate is 15 per cent.

This Singapore parent company is in turn owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a private company controlled by the Adani family and based in the Cayman Islands.

The port expansion has a similar structure: five companies and two trusts in Australia, ultimately controlled by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands……

Adani has created four companies and two trusts in Australia for the rail project.

The parent company for all these entities is Carmichael Rail and Port Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd, a company registered in Singapore where the corporate tax rate is 15 per cent.

This Singapore parent company is in turn owned by Atulya Resources Limited, a private company controlled by the Adani family and based in the Cayman Islands.

The port expansion has a similar structure: five companies and two trusts in Australia, ultimately controlled by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands.

The port expansion has a similar structure: five companies and two trusts in Australia, ultimately controlled by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands.

The vast expansion of the coal port planned by Adani has sparked enormous controversy.

It will involve dredging 1.1 million tonnes of spoil from the ocean near the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and poses a potential danger to the environmentally-sensitive reef, which is listed on the World Heritage Register.

Critics say the company structure set up by Adani raises serious concerns about the value of strict environmental approvals placed on the project.

Ownership of the existing Abbot Point Coal Terminal is in limbo.

Adani bought a 99-year lease over the coal port in 2011 for $1.8 billion through a company listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (AZPEZ).

That company said it "sold" the port three years ago to a Singaporean-based Adani family company "subject to regulatory and lenders approvals".

But the sale has not been completed, because of objections by the State Bank of India, which lent Adani $US800 million ($1.1 billion) for the port purchase.

In its latest filings with the Australian corporate watchdog, Adani still lists the port as being owned by the Bombay-listed company.

But ASPEZ's 2016 annual report said it had "recorded the divestment" of the port to Abbot Point Port Holdings Pte Ltd, Singapore: an entity which lists as its sole director Vinod Shantilal Adani, the brother of Guatam Adani, head of the Adani Group, and which is ultimately owned by Atulya Resources in the Cayman Islands.

Transferring ownership of the critical port infrastructure to a Caymans Islands' company "means it will be unregulated, unaccountable," Tim Buckley, director of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analytics told the ABC.

"It will be non-transparent to the Australian Government as to what is going on, who owns it, who are the directors. To me it is a matter of national security."

Companies and trusts created by Adani for the proposed Carmichael mine are ultimately owned by Adani Enterprises, a publicly-listed company in India, but the control flows via a company registered in the tax haven of Mauritius, Adani Global Ltd.

Adani Global Ltd. is based at Suite 501 St James Court, St Denis Street in Port Louis, Mauritius, and since 1998 has operated as a subsidiary of Adani Enterprises Limited which was incorporated in March 1993 as Adani Exports Ltd with the name change effected in 2007.

In October 2010 Adani's Australian subsidiary, Adani Mining Pty Ltd, made an application for approval of the Carmichael Coal Mine and Rail Project.

On 14 October 2015 the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment granted approval of 'controlled action' subject to conditions following re-consideration of project under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

In 2014 Adani and Posco had agreed to build rail line in Australia and the following year Adani signed an MoU with Australia's Woodside Energy for Energy Cooperation.

Adani media release, 25 November 2016:

Adani welcomes court decisions Adani Group today welcomed decisions by the Queensland Supreme Court to dismiss activist lead appeals against the granting of a Mining Lease and an Environmental Authority in relation to the company’s planned $21 billion coal project. The company said the decisions were further positive steps towards starting work in the September Quarter 2017 on the Carmichael Mine in central western Queensland and associated projects – a near-400km rail line and port expansion at Abbott Point. Adani said it would now examine the full decision documents and make no further comment.

Adani letter to the Indian stock exchange, excerpt, 8 December 2016:

Live Mint, 21 December 2016:

Adani Enterprises Ltd is aiming to start production at its $16 billion integrated mining project in Australia by end of 2020, after facing a four-year delay because of stiff resistance from environmental groups. 

In an interview, group chairman Gautam Adani brushed aside concerns about the group’s indebtedness and said it was looking at investment opportunities in sectors such as defence, coal conversions and water. He added that the group continues to explore opportunities in the mining sector as it looks at an integrated “pit-to-plug” strategy encompassing mines, rail and the port sector. 

The Carmichael mines in Galilee, Australia, will produce about 25 million tonnes of coal a year in fiscal 2021. The group has invested close to $4.5 billion in the first phase, Adani said. It is planning to use the coal to fuel its Mundra and Udupi power plants. 

Adani also said he sees the ports business—one of the group’s most successful ventures so far—to meet its target of setting up 200 million tonnes of cargo handling capacity by the end of 2018, two years before schedule. 

Senate inquiry recommends orderly retirement of all Australian coal-fired power stations

On 13 October 2016, the Australian Senate referred the following matter to the Environment and Communications References Committee for inquiry and interim report by 28 November 2016 and final report by 1 February 2017.

The Committee recommended the orderly retirement of all twenty-four operating black/brown coal-fired power stations which currently make up est. 77 per cent of the national energy market and, are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions in this country.

To date nine other coal-fired power stations have been decommissioned.

The report quotes the Australian Conservation Foundation and Climate Action Tracker:

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) argued that coal fired generators impose significant external costs to human health, the environment, and public infrastructure, which typically falls disproportionately on coal-dependent communities. The ACF noted that estimated costs of health damages associated with coal combustion for electricity in Australia amount to $2.6 billion per annum……

According to the Climate Action Tracker, to meet the federal government's Paris targets, emissions must fall 1.9 per cent annually on average. Instead, they are rising about 1.2 per cent a year. This is a clear indication that current climate policy is failing to achieve required pollution reduction……

Inquiry into retirement of coal fired power stations, Interim Report:

List of recommendations

Recommendation 1

5.10 The committee recommends that the Australian Government adopt a comprehensive energy transition plan, including reform of the National Electricity Market rules.

Recommendation 2

5.11 The committee recommends that the Australian Government, in consultation with industry, community, union and other stakeholders, develop a mechanism for the orderly retirement of coal fired power stations to be presented to the COAG Energy Council.

Recommendation 3

5.12 The committee recommends that the Australian Government, through representation on the COAG Energy Council, put in place a pollution reduction objective consistent with Australia's obligations under the Paris Agreement in the National Electricity Objectives.

Recommendation 4

5.13 The committee recommends that the Australian Government establish an energy transition authority with sufficient powers and resources to plan and coordinate the transition in the energy sector, including a Just Transition for workers and communities.

Liverpool Plains Youth: all in all it's just another bucket of coal

Hey, Shenhua – leave those plains alone!

https://youtu.be/GPpLSCGWOJ0

Adani threatens to take his bat and ball and go home - half the Australian east coast rushes to open the door

Essential Research poll, commissioned by environmental activists 350.org, The Sydney Morning Herald, 17 December 2015:

The Australian, 4 June 2016:

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani may abandon his proposed $16 billion coalmine in central Queensland if environmentalists continue to delay the project in the courts.

In his first interview with the Australian media, Mr Adani said he was disappointed the “pit to plug’’ project had yet to receive the green light after six years of environmental assessments and court battles.

Mr Adani, who late last year appealed to Malcolm Turnbull to act over the legal activism, said he hoped the court challenges to Australia’s largest proposed coalmine would be finalised early next year.

With one court case yet to be heard in the Federal Court, and at least two groups threatening High Court action, Mr Adani warned he could not wait indefinitely. The self-made billionaire, who plans to export up to 60,000 tonnes a year of Australian coal through the Great Barrier Reef, said he was already scouting alternatives to feed his power stations in India.

“You can’t continue just holding,’’ he said at the headquarters of his $US26 billion ($36bn) energy and infrastructure conglomerate in Ahmedabad, northwest India. “I have been really disappointed that things have got too delayed.’’

Mr Adani confirmed he had met the Prime Minister last December to implore him to deliver greater certainty on projects like his proposed Carmichael mine. It is forecast to deliver thousands of jobs to the economically depressed central Queensland region. “We were suggesting how to bring in the certainty of the timings,’’ he said. “We were asking how we get certainty of the time schedules … that is the most important for us in committing all of our resources.’’

The Carmichael mine, rail and port project promises to open up the untapped Galilee coal province to other mega-mines, including one being planned by Gina Rinehart in a joint venture with another Indian giant, GVK.

Mr Adani’s comments come after the focus of the federal election this week turned to measures to tackle coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef and climate change…..

President of the Casino Chamber of Commerce, Luke Bodley, lends his support to proposed environmental vandalism on a large scale

Des Euen and ‘friend’ on the Iluka side of the Clarence River mouth at an unspecified date

There is obviously one born every minute somewhere in the world and on 26 May 2016 it was the turn of the National Party's Luke Bodley of Realo Group Pty Ltd to step into the limelight and be recognised .

Here he is on Facebook promoting a proposal to destroy existing environmental, cultural, social and economic values in the Clarence River estuary:

And who is he doing this promotion for? Why for a $1 shelf company, with no apparent business address (instead using the address of the Minter Group), no listed business phone number and, most importantly,  no local, state or federal government support.

A phantom-like company which states it has had international development funding approved for five inter-related projects est. to cost $42.7 billion in total.

Projects which appear to still be mere sketches on the back of envelopes if this plan for a large industrial port is any indication:

Figure 1 shows a port precinct which covers an est. 27.2 % of the entire Clarence River estuary, 
www.aid-australia.com.au/project-1/

According to Mr. Euen the indicative timeline will see Stage 1 of this approx. 36 sq km super-port operational sometime in 2018 - even though not one of the required in-depth reports has been generated to date by AID Australia, no planning application has been submitted yet and no comprehensive surveying undertaken. He laughably states the entire proposed port infrastructure will be completed in around twelve years.

I wonder if Mr. Bodley has ever puzzled over the fact that there is no roar of support emanating from the Clarence Valley for these personal projects of former Queensland truck driver Desmond John Thomas Euen?

Has he thought about why an infrastructure 'plan' that has been hawked around the country for at least the last four to five years has been unable to gain official support in all that time from either local, state or federal governments?

Or wondered why Euen isn't holding his "summit" in the area covered by the lynch-pin in his grandiose plan, the Lower Clarence?

Perhaps this Google Earth snapshot of what the lowest section of the Clarence River estuary looks like today might give him a hint:

What this image shows is a river from the mouth to Harwood which has been held under Native Title since 2015 and an approach to the river partially blocked by a culturally & spiritually significant coffee rock reef which is the indigenous ancestor Dirrangun.

It shows the base for the largest commercial river & offshore fishery in NSW (generating in excess of an est. $92M output and $15.4M annual income) which supports a fleet moored on both the Iluka and Yamba sides of the river and as far up as Maclean.

There are also oyster leases and aquaculture ponds within the estuary.

This snapshot covers part of the range of one of only two river-dwelling dolphin pods on the east coast of Australia and one which successfully co-exists with the tourism-reliant small towns of Yamba, Iluka and Maclean, as well as with the many domestic and international yachts and other pleasure boats which use the lower river.

The green is this image predominately comprises cane farms, extensive national parks, dedicated foreshore nature reserves and one of this country’s few World Heritage areas, a 136 ha remnant of the ancient Gondwanna subtropical rainforests proclaimed by the United Nations in 1986.

In 2006-07 the people of the Clarence Valley successfully fought off a Howard Government proposal to dam and divert water from the Clarence River catchment for the benefit of mining, agricultural irrigation and land development interests in the Murray Darling Basin and southern Queensland.

That fight was part of the reason why Australia’s federal government changed in 2007.

As late as 30 May 2016 Nationals MP for Clarence and Parliamentary Secretary for the North Coast, Chris Gulapatis, has this to say in response to Euen's scheming:

While even Des Euen himself recently told The Daily Examiner that it is NSW Government policy to direct import-export sea freight to the major ports of Port Jackson, Port Botany, Port Kembla and the Port of Newcastle.

UPDATE

North Coast Voices received this email today:

North Coast Voices Blog - Correction of information required

From: redacted [mailto:redacted@gnfrealestate.com.au]
Sent: Wednesday, 8 June 2016 1:59 PM
To: northcoastvoices@gmail.com
Cc: Darren Perkins
Subject: North Coast Voices Blog - Correction of information required

Good afternoon,

With regard to the below blog link for North Coast Voices, Luke Bodley ceased employment with GNF Real Estate Pty Ltd on the 28^th April 2016. We request that the mention of George & Fuhrmann Real Estate be removed from the article.

http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/president-of-casino-chamber-of-commerce.html

Regards

Darren Perkins

Managing Director

George & Fuhrmann

However Luke Bodley was still listed as part of this real estate company's Casino staff as at 2.28PM on 8 June 2016:

When there is public evidence online that Mr. Bodley is no longer associated with this company the mention will be removed from the body of the post, but the correspondence and comment will remain.

Euen denies his unrealistic plan for a "Yamba Super-Port" includes a coal loader or bauxite moving through the port

An short anonymous online snippet under the pen name "Maclean" in The Northern Star on 14 April 2016 included this photograph of Desmond John Thomas Euen (far left) with the Australian Deputy-Prime Minister and MP for New England Barnaby Joyce:

The photograph appears to have been taken at one of the Lismore bowling clubs on an unspecified date and the published snippet (possibly penned by Mr. Euen himself) contained no real details of what the dour former Queensland truck driver told Barnaby Joyce about his personal plan for the small Port of Yamba.

However, a local reader told me on 25 May 2016 that when contacted Des Euen is once again "emphatically" denying there will be any facilities for coal loading in his plan for Yamba and that coal and bauxite will not be going through the port.

He claimed to this local reader that there had never been any plans for a coal loader or for bauxite to move through the port.

Des apparently said “no coal loading facilities”, “no bauxite loading facilities” and “that has always been the case.”

But only one week before his denial at least one version of the invitation to the so-called "summit" in Casino posted online by Euen included the statement: ”The dual capacity of Yamba Port and Pacific West Rail to provide a viable alternative route for the carriage of mineral resources emanating from Northern NSW and the lower section of the Surat Basin".

On 25 May that 4 May 2014 dot point was also still up on the AID Australia Pty Ltd website:

In his presentation to Moree Plains Shire Council on 12 June 2014 Euen is clearly expecting that his proposed rail network will potentially carry ore from the Muswellbrook, Glen Innes and Narromine rail heads to the Port of Yamba:

On 9 February 2015 and again on 26 May 2016 this dot point was sighted by North Coast Voices on the AID Australia Pty Ltd website:

Readers have been tracking some of the text changes Euen makes to the AID Australia website and are of the opinion that reference to a coal port found at http://www.aid-australia.com.au/competitive-edge/ is no longer directly accessible from the 'company' website homepage and is no longer included in the AID Australia's A “Key” Nation Building Infrastructure Plan Summit invitation.

Reference to the possibility that bauxite would be loaded from this new Yamba Super-Port can be found on the Australian Stock Exchange website where a gullible Queensland Bauxite Limited told the world it had been in talks with Mr. Euen.

Des Euen has also given similar assurances (no coal and no gas) to a member of the Clarence Forum:

NOTE: Mayor Richie Willaimson has again denied he supports Euen's port expansion plan.

To be frank, to date in the Lower Clarence there is scant belief in Des Euen's facile assurances about his personal plans for Yamba.

Plans which he has never deigned to publicly present and explain to the Yamba community - perhaps because he is afraid that his grandiose phantasy would be blown out of the water by local knowledge of the Clarence River, its estuary, physical environment and coastal approaches.

Biggest sovereign wealth fund in the world excludes China Shenhua Energy & Whitehaven Coal

In 2015 Shenhua Energy Company announced a fall in net profit of 56.9 percent.

In 2016 another nail in its coal coffin was revealed.....

Bloomberg, 14 April 2016:

Norway’s $860 billion sovereign wealth fund unveiled the first list of miners and power producers to be excluded from its portfolio following a ban on coal investments.

The 52 companies being barred include American Electric Power Co. Inc., China Shenhua Energy Co. Ltd., Whitehaven Coal Ltd., Tata Power Co. and Peabody Energy Corp., according to a statement from Norges Bank Investment Management, the unit of Norway’s central bank that manages the world’s biggest wealth fund. The exclusions are based on new criteria introduced by the government in February impacting companies that base at least 30 percent of their activities or revenues on coal.

“We’re reviewing all relevant companies by the end of 2016, and there will be further exclusions,” NBIM spokeswoman Marthe Skaar said by phone.

The fund has already divested stocks and bonds from the 52 companies, Skaar said. Based on current valuations and allocations in line with the fund’s benchmark index, the securities would represent about 19 billion kroner ($2.3 billion), she said. Most of the companies were out of the portfolio by the end of 2015 because 28 of them overlap with a list of so-called risk-based divestments, which the fund initiated as early as 2013, before it was clear there would be a new exclusion criterion based on coal, she said.

Norges Bank has estimated that the ban on coal investments, which was agreed in Parliament last year against the initial reluctance of Norway’s minority, Conservative-led government, would force the fund to sell holdings valued at about 55 billion kroner in 120 companies. The central bank said in a letter to the Finance Ministry last year that most of the companies will have been evaluated by the end of 2016, and that some could remain in the investment portfolio while the fund continued a dialog on their future use of coal……

The world's biggest private coal miner Peabody Energy which is also on the sovereign wealth fund exclusion list, and also operates in the Gunnedah region, is currently seeking bankruptcy protection in the US. 

A brief look at how Australians view Shenhua:

https://youtu.be/s0ZsO_ef0pc

Wangan and Jagalingou to Adani Mining: Take your shut up money and go home

https://youtu.be/cdts26tQElM

"Adani Mining won’t listen – they are rude and obstinate – so we will take the fight up a notch. We are planning more action in the courts and will take this fight all the way.

We will continue to fight. We are protecting Wangan and Jagalingou country from irreversible destruction, from complete devastation. We will maintain our stand against the Adani Carmichael mine. Because when we say no, we mean no."

wanganjagalingou.com.au/donate

How the Federal and Queensland Governments are betraying The Great Barrier Reef and the people of Australia

This billionare Gautam Adani and his family, through majority ownership of the Adani Group, are apparently considered favoured foreign investors by both the Abbott-Turnbull Federal Government and successive Queensland Governments.

He and his family are responsible for this…..

https://youtu.be/_wfjwlWlGTk

The bribery…..

ABC 7.30, 17 October 2012:

 Investigators have raised concerns about some of Adani enterprise's dealings with politicians and officials. In August the Auditor-General named Adani Power as one of the companies that received coal deposits from the Government at well below market rates. Gautam Adani declined our request for an interview, but the companies Australian CEO says Adani enterprises has always acted in accordance with the law…..

The Central Bureau of Investigation is now probing allegations of corruption and has opened files on at least seven unnamed companies. The Auditor-General says the lack of a transparent bidding process cost the Government $33 billion in lost revenue…..

Former Chief Justice Santosh Hegde is a well-known anti-corruption campaigner. Last year in his final act as Karnataka State Ombudsman, he released a detail report into the theft of iron ore by numerous companies which cost the state $3 billion in royalties. Justice Hegde's report found Adani Enterprises acted corruptly in the illicit transportation of iron ore in excess of the permitted quantity…..

Justice Hegde's report says the officials of ports department, custom, police, mines, local politicians and others received bribe money from Adani Enterprises.

The pollution…..

Business Standard, 24 December 2015:

Goa State Pollution Control Board (GSPCB) has issued notices to Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) and two major companies handling coal at its terminal under pollution control norms for allegedly causing environmental hazard.

GSPCB has issued show cause notice to MPT, M/s Adani Murmugao Port Terminal Private Ltd and JSW's South West Port Ltd after it was noticed that the dust pollution emanating from the coal handling has increased in the port town of Vasco, 40 kms from here.

Board Chairman Jose Manuel Noronha said the companies and the port administration have been asked why their consent under Water and Air Pollution Prevention Act should not be withdrawn.

"The show cause notices were issued when it was noticed that the coal handling terminals did not take mandatory measures to control the pollution emanating from the coal dust," Noronha said.

The deaths…..

The New York Times, 22 March 2013:

This month, the first comprehensive assessment of the health impact of pollution from India’s coal-fired power plants was published.

The findings are grim. Scientists estimate that exposure to coal-related pollution caused between 80,000 and 115,000 premature deaths and more than 20 million asthma attacks in 2011-12.

The conclusion is particularly worrying, given that the World Resources Institute estimates that 455 new coal power plants are planned in India, more than four times the number that exist now.

UbAlert, 10 April 2015:

Madhya Pradesh: Five people, three laborers and two security guards, died mysteriously in a Neemuch-based private factory on Thursday when they stepped down to clean a 25-feet deep tank filled with impurities generated by oil milling. The incident occurred at Adani Wilmar Oil Limited located four kilometers away from Neemuch district headquarter. Investigation is going on as to what caused the deaths of the factory workers whether it was acid in tank or they died due to suffocation.

The exploitation….

The Sydney Morning Herald, 5 September 2014:

But a Fairfax Media investigation into the treatment of 6000 construction labourers at a luxury housing project in Gujarat owned by the Adani family has uncovered lax safety standards, underage workers and regular cholera outbreaks from contaminated drinking water.

It comes after Mr Adani's company was found in February to have failed to gain proper environmental approval for construction around India's largest private port, also in Gujarat - destroying mangroves and displacing local villagers.

The poor choice of senior management…..

ABC News, 12 November 2015:

Adani Australia's chief executive officer was in charge of an African copper mine which allowed a flood of dangerous pollutants to pour into a Zambian river, the ABC can reveal.

Jeyakumar Janakaraj has been chief executive of Adani's Australian operations since leaving Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) in Zambia in 2013.

Now KCM and its parent company Vedanta Resources are being taken to the High Court in London by locals who say pollution from the company's huge Chingola open-pit copper mine made them ill and devastated nearby farmland over a 10-year period from 2004.

Mr Janakaraj was director of operations of KMC when the company was charged in 2010 with causing a serious pollution spill, which saw a toxic brew of highly acidic, metal-laden discharge released into the Kafue River.

The river is one of Zambia's largest waterways and a source of water and food for about 40 per cent of the country's people.

The 31-square-kilometre KCM open pit mine in Zambia's Chingola region is described as the biggest copper mine in Africa, producing about 2 million tonnes of ore a year.

The 2009 annual report of KCM's parent company, London-listed mining conglomerate Vedanta Resources, said Mr Janakaraj was "responsible for overall operations of KCM".

"On [Mr Janakaraj's] watch, significant pollution events happened," lawyer Ariane Wilkinson of Environmental Justice Australia said.

"The court documents show that they discharged what's called a pregnant liquor solution into the Kafue River. That's a highly acidic, metal-laden pollutant, and that it changed the colour of the river."

KCM was prosecuted by the Zambian Government, and the company pleaded guilty to charges of polluting the environment, discharging toxic matter into the aquatic environment, wilfully failing to report an incident of pollution, and the failure to comply with the requirements for discharge of effluent.

The court was told the source of the contamination was the mine's tailings leach plant, with the pollution changing the colour of the Kafue River to "deep blue". The company was fined 21,970,000 Zambian kwacha (about $4,030).

A few months later, in 2011, a Zambian newspaper reported the company's copper mine had again polluted the river, and that environmental authorities were investigating.

The lies told….

The Age, 16 December 2015:

A Queensland court has found Indian mining company Adani exaggerated the economic benefits of its proposed Carmichael coal mine, including the amount of jobs and royalties the $16.5 billion project would generate…..

he court agreed the company had overstated the economic benefits that would flow from its project both in its environmental impact statement and in statements to the court.

Adani has promoted the project as a jobs bonanza for Queensland and its environmental impact statement forecast 10,000 jobs annually from 2024 and $22 billion in royalties.

But Adani's own witness Jerome Fahrer told the court this year the coal mine and connecting rail project would create an average of just 1464 jobs annually, an assessment Queensland Land Court president Carmel MacDonald agreed with.

"Dr Fahrer's evidence, which I have accepted, was that the Carmichael Coal and Rail Project will increase average annual employment by 1206 fte [full time equivalent] jobs in Queensland and 1,464 fte jobs in Australia," her judgment states.

President MacDonald also found Adani's modelling had "probably overstated the selling price of the coal and therefore the royalties generated by the project and the corporate tax payable".

The environmental danger....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 2016:

But conservationists say the mine is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, citing particular risks to the Great Barrier Reef.

"It's an extraordinary decision, especially coming at a time when the Great Barrier Reef is experiencing its worst ever coral bleaching event," Australian Conservation Foundation chief executive Kelly O'Shanassy said. "We know the bleaching is because of global warming, and Carmichael will only make that worse."

By Adani's own figures, the mine and its coal will emit more than 4.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. "The pollution from this mine is so big that it cancels the pollution cuts the Turnbull government committed to at the Paris Climate Summit," Ms O'Shanassy said.

The impact of such emissions could be terminal to the reef, according to Dr Veron. "The reef is obviously in dire straights, irrespective of what anyone says, and that's blindly obvious.

"There is extraordinary disconnect between science and the political action. Politicians think the mine is good because it's good for economy, but we are selling out the next generation of Australians as fast as we can go."

Dr Veron has devoted his life to studying coral reefs: he discovered more than 20 per cent of the world's coral species, and has been likened by Sir David Attenborough to a modern day Charles Darwin.

"Roughly a third of marine species have parts of their life cycle in coral reefs," Dr Veron said. "So if you take out coral reefs you have an ecological collapse of the oceans. It's happened before, mass extinctions through ocean acidification, and the main driver of that is CO₂."

Dr Veron recently travelled to Canberra to talk to government about the decline in the reef. "The politicians do listen to scientists, but that is the worst part of it," he said. 

"If this was all done out of sheer ignorance, that is sort of understandable. It's like child porn – you might say you don't know it exists, but if you know it exists and you do everything to promote it, then that's evil."

The granting of the Carmichael leases coincides with increased concerns over threats to Great Barrier Reef from land-based pollution, including sediments, nutrients and pesticides.

Australian Institute of Marine Science principal research scientist Dr Frederieke Kroon has told the ABC that government policies designed to keep the reef on UNESCO's World Heritage list are insufficient.

"Our review finds that current efforts are not sufficient to achieve the water quality targets set in the Reef 2050 Plan," she said.

The other danger….

The Age, 10 December 2015:

Last week billionaire businessman Gautam Adani paid a visit to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull asking him to enact a special law to stop anyone challenging big coal and gas projects once they have been approved by government. This meeting raises questions about the relationship between government and big polluting companies.

The Prime Minister is entitled to meet with anyone he likes, you may very well say, but there are two issues here – one is the fossil fuel industry's direct access to power and the other is the implications of that on Australia's democracy.

Turnbull's back room meeting with international billionaire businessman Adani is an example of the warm reception the fossil fuel industry enjoys in Australia. This direct access to the highest office in our country is an unfortunate feature of our democracy, and speaks of the pernicious dynamic where money enables access to power. Just by the way, according to data released by the AEC, Adani donated $49,500 to the Liberal Party of Australia in the 2013-2014 financial year.

The state government manoeuvres....

The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 April 2016:

Two groups fighting the mine in separate court battles have accused Dr Lynham of abandoning previous assurances that leases would not be granted until two existing cases were resolved.

Just eight weeks ago, Dr Lynham said he wanted to give certainty to Adani and "granting a mining lease in the presence of two JRs (judicial reviews) does not provide the certainty".

Separate Federal Court challenges brought by the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) and the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) traditional owners are yet to be concluded.

The Environmental Defenders Office - which is representing ACF in its challenge to the project's federal approvals - has already said it's considering challenging Dr Lynham's decision to grant Adani mining leases.

AAP has asked Dr Lynham to explain why he issued the leases despite the two outstanding challenges.

On ABC radio on Monday, he agreed there was a prospect of further court appeals.

The solemn vow and plea for assistance....

Excerpt from a 4 April 2016 email from Adrian Burragubba on behalf of the Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners:

The Queensland Government just betrayed us.

Queensland Mines Minister Anthony Lynham wrote a letter to us in October, promising he would await the outcome of our Federal Court action against the Carmichael mine before considering issuing Adani with the mining leases. But today the Premier and the Minister double-crossed us.

Adani doesn't have our free, prior and informed consent to build their Carmichael coal mine on our land, and they never will.

The Queensland Government just rode roughshod over our rights and granted the mining leases anyway. They have given Adani the green light to ignore our opposition and to tear the heart out of our country. To destroy our rivers and drain billions of litres of groundwater. To leave a black hole of monumental proportions in our homelands.

The Minister has trashed our rights and pushed the leases out the door in one of the worst acts of bad faith towards Queensland's Indigenous people in living memory.

This fight will define our people and be a landmark moment for Indigenous rights in Australia. Can you help us fight for our rights and our country in court?

Adani and the Queensland Government think they can walk all over us but they've never seen anything like this. Our lands and our way of life, and the legacy of our ancestors, mean too much to our people for us to roll over.

Our resolve is doubled. Minister Lynham can issue all the bits of paper he likes, hide behind false claims of jobs and benefits, and pander to big coal for an unviable project.

But our people's rights are not expendable. This act of infamy will be challenged all the way to the High Court if necessary, and we will continue to pursue our rights under international law. 

Adrian Burragubba leads a protest against the proposed mine outside Queensland Parliament in March.ABC News: Patrick Williams