Adani, GVK win Australian state backing to expand coal port

The projects are opposed by green groups worried about pollution and damage to the Great Barrier Reef

Queensland’s new state government on Wednesday cleared plans by two Indian companies to expand a port for coal projects that are opposed by green groups worried about pollution and damage to the Great Barrier Reef. The approval, supporting separate mining projects planned by Indian conglomerates Adani Enterprises and GVK, came as a surprise. The new Labour government had been seen as less supportive of the coal industry than its predecessor.

The previous government, toppled in January in a stunning election outcome, had proposed spending taxpayers’ money to help fund the Abbot Point port expansion and a rail line for Adani’s Carmichael project in the untapped Galilee Basin.

The port expansion was to have involved dumping 3 million cubic metres of soil dredged at the port of Abbot Point into the sea about 25 km from the Great Barrier Reef. However, the Australian government moved earlier this year to ban all dredge dumping in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park amid concern that UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee may label the reef “in danger” this year. The government said all Abbot Point dredge spoil should be dumped on land.

An alternative land dumping proposal near wetlands was rejected by the new Labor government. Instead it has approved plans to dump the dredge spoil at the port itself, on a site slated for another coal terminal that has been shelved.