PM Turnbull Receives Dear Malcolm Letter Re: Adani Coal Loan

Image : Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has made good on an election promise to veto a $1 billion concessional loan to Adani for the Northern Galilee Basin Rail Project, part of its Carmichael mine project.

As one of her first acts after being sworn in as Premier yesterday, Ms. Palaszczuk wrote to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, exercising Queensland’s veto over any NAIF funding for the Adani rail line.

The letter reads in part:

“”Following today’s swearing in of my new Government and in accordance with Section 13(4) of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Investment Facility Mandate Direction 2016 (https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2016L00654), my Government provides formal notification to the Commonwealth that financial assistance should not be provided to Adani for the Northern Galilee Basin Rail Project. As such the Government is exercising its veto right under section 13(4) of the Investment Facility Mandate in response to the Adani loan application.”

The full contents of the letter can be viewed here.

Section 13(4) of the Mandate states:

“The Facility must not make an Investment Decision if at any time the relevant jurisdiction provides written notification that financial assistance should not be provided to a Project.”

.. in other words, without Queensland’s support the loan cannot go ahead.

Adani appears to be finding it very difficult to scrape together the necessary financial support for its Queensland coal project. Australian banks have backed (fled?) away from it and last week we reported former foreign minister Bob Carr said Adani won’t have any luck sourcing financing from China.

Adani’s troubles don’t end there. Last week it found itself again in the spotlight after a complaint was referred to the ACCC regarding the number of jobs that have been claimed will be generated from the Carmichael mine and associated activities.

Lots Of Solar Love In Queensland

While the skies may be darkening for Adani’s Australian coal aspirations, there’s plenty of sunshine for solar in Queensland.

On Monday, Windlab announced the first sod of soil was turned at the site of Kennedy Energy Park; a $160 million project situated near Hughenden in North West Queensland.. Kennedy Energy Park will consist of 43.2MW wind and 15MW AC of solar power capacity, plus 4MWh of lithium-ion battery storage to be supplied by Tesla.

Yesterday, Genex Power announced the selection of UGL as preferred engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for its 270MW Kidston Stage 2 Solar project in North Queensland. Stage 2 will be integrated and co-located with the Kidston Pumped Storage Hydro Project (250MW). Kidston Stage 1 (50MW) began delivering electricity to the grid early this month.

According to a recent Green Markets’ Renewable Energy Index report, Queensland had 1,876MW of large-scale solar energy facilities under construction in October.