Reacting to the news that the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China has clarified it has no plans to arrange finance for the Adani Carmichael coal mine, Market Forces Executive Director Julien Vincent said:
“Two of Adani’s biggest remaining hopes for finance for its proposed Carmichael coal mine are now gone. Having failed to secure finance from banks in the US, Europe and Australia, Adani has now seen the world’s largest and second largest banks by assets rule out support for its massive proposed coal mine.
“This leaves their attempts to open up Australia’s largest coal mine in tatters, and increasingly reliant on public funding.”
Protesters were planning activities this week to call on ICBC and the China Construction Bank to avoid lending to the Adani Carmichael mine, pointing out that the project’s myriad of environmental, social and financial risks would also translate to reputational risks for institutions that support the project.
Adani has been attempting to bring China Machinery Engineering Corporation into its Carmichael coal mine and rail project. Doing so would open up access to potential credit from the Chinese Export-Import bank and the relationships that CMEC bring.
Two of CMEC’s banks are ICBC and the China Construction Bank, which on Friday also confirmed it would not be involved in financing the project.
Mr Vincent said of the weekend’s developments:
“It says everything about how reputationally damaging the Carmichael coal mine is that some of the banks that have been most active in supporting coal in recent years will proactively rule out this project.