Lloyd’s chief executive Ash Bathia confirmed in an email seen by this masthead that it would cease underwriting Adani’s operations once its existing policies expired in the next quarter.
Adani acquired the Carmichael coal mine in central Queensland in a cash and royalty deal worth $2.7 billion 13 years ago. The mine is operated under its Bravus Mining&Resources arm. It faced numerous legal and political challenges during its approval process before beginning to export coal last year.
Adani holds a 99-year lease from the Queensland government for the Abbot Point coal port,also known as the North Queensland Export Terminal,and it also owns a number of companies around the globe with interests in energy,mining,transport and infrastructure development.
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A Bravus spokesperson denied that Probitas’ exit would trouble the company or had left it “beleaguered”,which activists claim,saying the mine is “running like clockwork” and the company has adequate insurance for its operations as a low-cost producer of thermal coal,which is used for heating and to generate electricity.
“The mine continues to safely and efficiently ramp up to its constructed level of production,which is in the order of 10 million tonnes per annum,” the spokesperson said.
Adani,and its billionaire industrialist founder and chairman Gautam Adani,have had a torrid year.