Name and Location
Carmichael coal mine project, Queensland, Australia.

Client
Adani Mining, a wholly owned subsidiary of India’s Adani Group.

Project Description
Adani proposes to build a 60-million-tonne-a-year opencut and underground greenfield coal mine, in the Galilee basin, as well as a 189 km greenfield rail line, connecting the mine to the existing Goonyella and Newlands rail system, south of Moranbah.

Development on the mine site within the mining lease will include:
• six opencut pits, with a combined capacity of 40-million tonnes a year of product coal, predominantly mined by a truck-and-shovel/excavator operation, supplemented by draglines and dozers for overburden removal;
• five independent underground longwall mines, with a combined capacity of 20-million tonnes a year of product coal, mining two seams of more than 45 km north to south and a conceptual longwall panel length of 5 000 m, 300-m-wide longwall panel voids and an extraction face of between 3 m and 4.5 m high;
• five mine infrastructure areas servicing each of the opencut and underground mines, comprising mine service areas, power supply, fuel supply and storage, water supply and management, mine water management, roads, transport facilities, waste disposal facilities, communications and medical facilities;
• a coal handling and processing plant, designed to process 74.5-million tonnes a year of raw coal;
• out-of-pit waste rock structures to store the initial volumes of the project’s 13.1-billion bank cubic metres of overburden and interburden, prior to the storage of waste rock in mine voids, when available; and
• coal stockpiles, tailings storage cells, water management structures, a 2.5 km portion of the rail loop and coal-loading facilities adjacent to the rail.

Offlease infrastructure includes:
• a workers accommodation village and associated facilities, located 12 km east of the mine, which includes accommodation for up to 3 500 employees, with medical, kitchen/dining, laundry and recreational facilities, car parking, sewerage and power infrastructure and a maintenance shed, as well as hazardous materials and chemicals storage;
• an airport to provide access for a 150-seater aircraft and the project’s fly-in, fly-out workforce, including a runway and terminal with security, amenities, a café, departure lounge, parking and passenger set-down areas, as well as emergency fuel storage and aerodrome rescue and firefighting services facilities;
• a heavy industrial area, with facilities for the service and maintenance of the mine, as well as off-site infrastructure and rail, including vehicle and equipment fabrication and maintenance workshops, a concrete batching plant, a hot-mix bituminous plant, bulk fuel storage, vehicle wash areas, warehouse and storage, and office and administration buildings.

The industrial area is proposed to be located directly north of the proposed rail alignment, which will allow for access to a rail siding for use in supply logistics during mine development. The area will include:
• water supply infrastructure to allow for the extraction, storage and delivery of up to 12.5 G∙/y of water, with an average yearly extraction of 10 G∙, including a floodwater harvester on the Belyando river, a 70 km raw water supply pipeline from the Belyando river to the mine site, pumpstations and an offsite storage facility; and
• the upgrade and realignment of the Moray–Carmichael road to circumvent the mine footprint.

The rail component of the project includes a greenfield rail line, connecting the mine to the existing Goonyella and Newlands rail systems to allow for the export of coal through the Port of Hay Point and the Port of Abbot Point respectively, including:
• a 120 km dual-gauge rail from the mine site, running from west to east to Diamond Creek;
• a 69 km narrow-gauge rail, running east from Diamond Creek connecting to the Goonyella and Newlands rail system, south of Moranbah; and
• 4.5 km dual-gauge reception and departure lines and an 18.7 km balloon loop loading line, predominantly located off the mining lease.

The rail component of the project also includes four construction camps, located about every 60 km along the proposed rail line, each accommodating 400 people ; 29 track and 25 bridge laydown areas; and a construction depot close to the Borrow 7 quarry and the Gregory developmental road.

Further, there will be five quarries adjacent to the rail line to extract fill materials for the construction and maintenance of the railway, road construction and upgrades, and embankment material.

Value
A$16.5-billion.

Duration
Adani expects that the first coal will be shipped from the opencut pits in 2016 and from the longwall operations in 2019.

Construction of the rail component of the project is expected to start late in 2014, subject to obtaining the relevant approvals, with completion of the alignment and operation of the first coal train expected to start in 2016.

Latest Developments
Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has approved the Carmichael project following a thorough assessment and consideration, with 36 conditions being imposed on the project development. These conditions complement the conditions imposed by the Queensland government, Hunt says, and will ensure the proponent meets the highest environmental standards and that all impacts, including cumulative impacts, are avoided, mitigated or offset.

He notes that the strict conditions will ensure the protection of the environment as a paramount concern.

The conditions require Adani to ensure that a minimum of 730 Ml of water be returned to the Great Artesian basin every year for five years. They also allow for peer review of the parameters of the groundwater modelling and for rerunning the model to determine whether further mitigation measures are required.

Furthermore, the Indian firm will have to monitor groundwater changes to verify and update the modelling, adaptively manage uncleared habitat to address potential subsidence impacts and groundwater changes, offset impacts from cleared habitat and review offset requirements if uncleared habitat is subsequently impacted on through subsidence or groundwater changes.

Adani will also be required to contribute through funding to address the cumulative impacts to threatened species and communities and to undertake research on potential groundwater changes to adaptively manage risks of impacts.

Key Contracts and Suppliers
None stated.

On Budget and on Time?
Not stated.

Contact Details for Project Information
Adani Mining, tel + 61 7 3223 4800, fax + 61 7 3223 4850 or email Reception.Australia@adani.in.