SYDNEY, May 17, 2018 – Engineering firm AECOM’s admission that it has “demobilised” from Adani Group’s Carmichael rail line shows key suppliers have joined potential financiers in abandoning the project.

Overnight AECOM revealed it was no longer working with Adani on the front end engineering and design work to build a rail line to its proposed coal mine in North Queensland’s Galilee Basin.

“This should serve as the final nail in the coffin for this environmentally and economically unsustainable project that most stakeholders have already walked away from,” Greenpeace Australia Pacific Campaigner Jonathan Moylan said.

“Adani Group have shown time and time again that they can’t take this slow-moving train wreck forward and should scrap it for good. The Australian people don’t want it, the banks won’t touch it and now even key partners who stand to profit handsomely are giving up on Adani.

“They’ve seen the writing on the wall and made their minds up about Adani, it’s now time for the federal government to do the same and pull its support of this marooned project.”

Key partners publicly distancing themselves from the Carmichael coal mine is only one of Adani’s many concerns. The company is scrambling to secure finance after missing yet another deadline.

Last year Adani Australia chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj said the company would have settled financing for the project by March 2018. That didn’t happen and led to another key player exiting the project when construction firm Downer EDI’s $2 billion letter of award to build and operate the mine was scrapped.

And finding the funds has proven a challenge with Australia’s Big Four banks ruling out funding Adani as well as more than 20 international banks and all Chinese state-owned banks.

“While Adani digs its heels in and pretends all is well, they continue to make promises that they can never deliver,” Moylan said.

“Most corporations would have walked away a long time ago given the strident opposition of the Australian people and lack of finance. Adani’s one glimmer of hope was $1 billion of taxpayer money through the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) but public opposition has effectively killed that off.

“Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten should now put us all out of our misery, pledge that not a cent of taxpayer money will go Adani through the Export Finance and Investment Corporation or any other vehicle, and commit to revoking the approval for this boondoggle.”

 

For interviews:

Martin Zavan, Communications Campaigner, Greenpeace Australia Pacific  +61 424 295 422, [email protected]