Major Korean lenders have ruled out any role in funding Indian conglomerate Adani’s contentious Australian coal project, just months after the miner was reportedly in talks to win backing from lenders in Seoul.
Traditional owners fighting the mine have secured pledges from a trio of lenders including the Export-Import Bank of Korea, a critical conduit for Korean lenders, which said it believed there was no longer any interest in the mega-mine.
Representatives of the Wangan and Jagalingou (W&J) traditional owners, who strongly oppose the Adani mine, today flew to Korea to continue lobbying lenders, including Mirae Asset Daewoo, which refinanced Adani’s Queensland coal port in July.
ABC News reports Adani is trying to clinch funding for a new scaled-down launch of a project first touted to cost $16.5 billion, now earmarked to get underway with an initial $2 billion.
The W&J opponents, who tried in vain to overturn an Indigenous Land Use Agreement (ILUA) with Adani, are appealing the decision before the full bench of the Federal Court.
ABC News reports the ILUA is critical to the funding of the project, as major global lenders require Indigenous consent for resources projects.
The Export-Import Bank of Korea met with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials in 2016, at Adani’s request, to discuss “engagement” with the project.
However, the bank wrote to the W&J Family Council last week, all but ruling out the prospect of any lender interest in Adani from Korea.
“We would like to inform you that, the Export-Import Bank of Korea (Korea Eximbank) does not have any intent to provide financial support to the Carmichael project, since, as far as we know, there are not any Korean interests any more in the project,” it wrote.
The Korea Development Bank wrote on October 31: “We wish to express that we have no intent to provide finance for the project.”
KDB Infrastructure Investments Asset Management Co (KIAMCO) also wrote to the W&J Family Council to “hereby confirm that we have no intention to participate by all means, financial or other support or services, in the development of the Carmichael mine”.
“We deeply conform [to] the responsibility of financial investors and have well understood the importance and concerns for the development of the Carmichael mine on the W&J’s ancestral lands,” it said.
The W&J Adani opponents said they would seek meetings and hold “media events” at the offices of other institutions including Mirae Asset Daewoo, Korea’s National Pension Service and NH-Amundi.
A similar lobbying roadshow by W&J representatives in the US and Europe in 2015 saw major lenders, including Britain’s largest investment bank Standard Chartered, back away from Adani.
The ABC understands financial industry sources recently confirmed with Australia’s big four banks that none would have a role in the Carmichael project.
The Queensland Labor state government has said Adani must reach “financial close” before it will permanently wipe out native title claims to the mine site to hand over tenure to the miner.
However, it has also asked Adani to put up security for a royalties deal that would allow the miner to defer hundreds of millions of dollars of state payments, which Adani is yet to sign after 18 months.
The W&J mine opponents are battling to retain their native title rights and have formally complained to the United Nations.
“Whoever assists Adani financially at this crucial time will become complicit in a grave breach of our rights, and the destruction of our lands and waters and sacred places,” W&J elder Adrian Burragubba said.
An Adani spokesperson said the company had been “working with the traditional owners of the Carmichael project area, the Wangan and Jagalingou, Juru, Birriah and Jangga, since 2010”.
“Indigenous Land Use Agreements are in place with all four claim groups and are registered by the National Native Title Tribunal,” the spokesperson sa
