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The Indian billionaire behind the controversial Carmichael coal mine in Australia is hitting back at criticism the endeavor will be both unprofitable and too dirty.
In an interview in New Delhi, Gautam Adani took aim at two major faults opponents have flung at the development: that the mine's low-quality coal won't earn enough money to justify his $2 billion investment, and that the world must abandon the fuel in favor of renewable energy to avoid catastrophic climate change.
"If the project wasn't viable, we wouldn't have pursued it," said Adani, whose net worth of $9.8 billion makes him India's sixth-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. "Renewable energy is good for the nation, but it can't meet our baseload power needs."
Adani bought the resource in Australia's Galilee Basin in 2010 as Indian companies rushed for overseas energy supplies amid forecasts of booming demand. But as coal prices fizzled through the first half of the decade, Carmichael's output - closer to lower-quality Indonesian coal than the high-value varieties Australia is known for - is seen unable to fetch a price strong enough to be profitable.
"The commerciality of Adani's Carmichael mine remains challenging given the significant capital spend and low-quality thermal coal product expected from the mine," said Brent Spalding, a principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
Australia's Newcastle coal, a benchmark in Asia, would need to rise above $100 a metric ton, from about $78 now, for Carmichael to break even, according to Spalding.
Carmichael, which cleared final state approvals last month, will open up a new mining basin in the Australian outback amid increasingly dire warnings of the need to cut carbon emissions to avoid the ecological and economic havoc of climate change. Though coal is the most carbon-intensive fossil fuel, Adani has found a relatively friendly host country in Australia, where the economic heft of the resource industry helped re-elect a pro-coal federal government and overcome staunch opposition from environmentalists.
"We entered Australia with two overarching goals; contributing to energy security in India and creating job opportunities for the locals," said Adani, 57, who started as a diamond trader in Mumbai before setting up Adani Group in 1988. His conglomerate - spanning ports, energy and mining - has become one of India's key infrastructure service providers, while also venturing overseas.
Coal's use has been on the decline in Europe and the U.S. amid cheaper alternatives and pressure to ditch the most-polluting fossil fuel. Yet it dominates power production in much of Asia, a position it's expected to sustain despite a boom in cleaner sources, such as wind and solar, as energy demand continues to grow.
Adani said the board approved 10 million metric tons of annual output from Carmichael's first phase, which will head to his power plants in India, including Mundra and Godda. Adani Group is headquartered in Gujarat the state where current Prime Minister Narendra Modi served as the chief minister for little over a decade before he swept national elections in 2014.
India's per-capita consumption of electricity "is way below the global average," Adani said. "India's development is linked to the availability of more power. And coal will play a big role in this as a baseload supplier."
India's challenges supplying reliable power to every home have been more about distribution than whether it has enough power plants or coal. The nation already has a surplus of generation capacity, but it's money-losing, debt-saddled state utilities struggle to purchase and distribute enough power, leaving some power stations shuttered and homes in the dark.
When the company decides to raise the capacity of Carmichael - peak annual capacity is now seen at 27 million tons, down from an original 60 million - it will explore selling washed coal to buyers in Japan and Korea, according to Adani. Construction has already begun, he said, reiterating the company's two-year timeline for first output.
"The need of the hour," Adani said, "is to get started."
Of eight nations where Opensignal conducted real-world testing during April to the end of June, Australia is the only nation where 4G speeds were better than the much-hyped speeds of 5G.
According to Opensignal, Australia's maximum 4G network speed was 950Mbps, while 5G topped out at 792Mbps. This left it as the only country with 4G outpacing 5G, although Spain only had a 6Mbps difference between the two.
For the rest of the world, the US hit 1.8Gbps on 5G, followed by Switzerland on 1.1Gbps, South Korea just below 1.1Gbps, UAE registered 665Mbps, with Italy close by on 657Mbps, Spain just above 600Mbps, and the UK bringing up the rear with 569Mbps.
This meant 5G sits in a range of 0.8 times to 2.7 times as quick as 4G.
In tests conducted by ZDNet last month, 5G speeds failed to crack 300Mbps, with the one exception being in Telstra's Sydney headquarters.
See: Real world 5G not ready for primetime in 2019
Opensignal said the quick speed exhibited by the US was due to the use of millimetre wave spectrum.
"This is extremely high capacity and extremely fast spectrum but has very limited coverage compared with the 3.4-3.8 GHz 5G 'mid band' spectrum typically used in most of the other countries we analysed where mmWave spectrum is not yet available," it said.
For its tests, Opensignal said it wanted to look at "the true end-to-end network experience" and does not use servers located "very close" to users.
On Monday, Telstra released a set of electromagnetic energy readings on its live 5G network in Queensland that showed similar readings to 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi.
"In the testing we completed inside apartments and cafes near our 5G Innovation Centre at Southport on the Gold Coast, we measured 5G EME levels consistently under 0.02% of the ARPANSA standard limit -- that is more than 5000 times below the safety limit put in place by the Australian government body responsible for EME," Telstra principal EME strategy, governance and risk management Mike Wood said.
"It is also important to note that existing safety standards for EME cover 5G, including children, are conservative and will also include the higher mmWave frequencies to be used in the future."
Telstra presented its data to the World Health Organisation and International Electrotechnical Commission.
The Australian federal police obtained from Qantas Airways the personal travel records of a journalist, a revelation that alarmed the media industry on Monday after police raids on journalists last month raised questions about press freedoms in the country.
A document obtained by The Sydney Morning Herald showed that the police approached the airline in March seeking travel records for a journalist who wrote a 2017 article alleging that the Australian military had committed possible war crimes against Afghan citizens.
A Qantas officer then searched for details of two flights in 2016 at the request of the police, and “captured and printed” details of the trips, the paper said. The request drew sharp criticism from media groups.
“The feeling is that journalism is under attack in this country,” said Paul Murphy, chief executive of the Australian union for journalists, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance. “There is no regard for the important role journalists play in a functioning democracy.”
The incident was another sign that it had become “normal practice” for the federal police and law enforcement agencies in Australia to target journalists and whistle-blowers, he added.
“We need urgent action from government to protect the right to know,” Mr. Murphy added.
In a rare instance of unity, media executives from the country’s biggest news organizations have called for reforms to protect press freedom after two police raids last month — one on the home of a News Corp. journalist and another at the headquarters of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The journalist whose travel records were obtained, Daniel Oakes, was part of an ABC team that published “The Afghan Files,” a 2017 article based on leaked military documents that described potential war crimes by Australian armed forces in Afghanistan.
Last year, the government passed sweeping legislation that included harsher penalties for leaking classified or secret information. The law made it illegal for government officials to disclose such information and in some cases, for journalists to receive it. The alleged whistle-blower behind the “Afghan Files” documents, a former military lawyer, has already identified himself and is facing charges.
A spokeswoman for the federal police declined to comment Monday on the seizure of the travel records, saying the investigation is continuing.
A Qantas spokeswoman said in a statement on Monday that the airline receives numerous requests for information from law enforcement agencies. She said the airline is not informed about the occupation of passengers in such requests and provides information only on passengers who are subject to a criminal investigation.
Christian Porter, Australia’s attorney general, has said that he is “seriously disinclined” to prosecute journalists except in the most exceptional of circumstances.
Still, there is a “worrying chasm” between the government’s actions and its words, said Joseph Fernandez, an associate professor of journalism at Curtin University in Perth.
On an international stage, such police activity is at odds with Australia’s reputation for having a transparent democracy, and could “embolden other oppressive governments,” Dr. Fernandez said.
“We are seriously undermining our credibility when it comes to upholding basic rights and freedoms,” he added.
Australian student Alek Sigley smiles as he arrives at an airport in Tokyo on July 4, 2019, following his release.
Toshifumi Kitamura | AFP | Getty Images
North Korea on Thursday released and deported an Australian student after detaining him for several days for allegedly spying.
The autocratic country's state-controlled media said the Australian man, Alek Sigley, had admitted to "systematically" collecting information and providing photos to foreign news outlets, according to The New York Times.
The incident comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's meeting in the Demilitarized Zone, which separates the North and South Korea, making Trump the first U.S. president to ever set foot in North Korea.
Kim's regime has recently been caught in a tense dance of criticisms and compliments with Washington as the Trump administration seeks a nuclear deal with Pyongyang. The sudden and secretive detainment of a citizen of a U.S.-allied nation may have been a North Korean attempt to send a signal to the White House, some experts said.
'Return to normal life'
Sigley was reportedly studying Korean literature at Kim Il-Sung University in Pyongyang while running a tourism business, helping foreign students enter the reclusive state. During his time in the capital he published six articles online, mostly about North Korean fashion, apps and restaurants but North Korea is said to have deemed them to be "anti-state."
According to a report by The Sydney Morning Herald, experts have dismissed the regime's claim that Sigley was a spy, and have instead noted that he apparently had "extraordinary freedom to travel and share his observations about the country online."
North Korean state-run news agency KCNA claimed, however, that the student acknowledged some wrongdoing.
"He honestly admitted his spying acts of systematically collecting and offering data about the domestic situation of the DPRK (North Korea) and repeatedly asked for pardon, apologizing for encroachment upon the sovereignty of the DPRK" KCNA said.
The agency added that the release of the student was in fact evidence of "humanitarian leniency" from the North Korean government.
Sigley has returned to Tokyo where he resides with his wife. According to The Guardian, Sigley said in a statement that he will not be holding any news conferences or doing any interviews.
"I just want everyone to know I am OK, and to thank them for their concern for my wellbeing and their support for my family over the past week," he said, the Guardian reported. "I'm very happy to be back with my wife, Yuka, and to have spoken with my family in Perth (Australia) to reassure them I'm well."
He added that he intends to "return to normal life" after publicly thanking everyone that worked on ensuring his safety and return.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Sigley have thanked Swedish diplomats for negotiating with Pyongyang for his release, according to The New York Times. Australia relies on the Swedish Embassy in Pyongyang for any diplomatic talks with North Korea because Canberra does not have an embassy in North Korea's capital.
Detainment of an American student
This isn't the first time North Korea has imprisoned a foreign student visiting the country. American Otto Warmbier was detained for removing a propaganda sign from a Pyongyang hotel in 2016. The student's action was described as a "hostile act against the state," according to a KCNA report.
The difference between Warmbier and Sigley's situations is that the former was not immediately released even after extensive pressure from the international community. In fact, Warmbier fell into a coma the day he was sentenced for 15 years in prison with hard labor and died days after he was finally returned to the U.S. in an unconscious state.
Then-U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis described the incident as going "beyond any kind of understanding of law and order, of humanity, of responsibility towards any human being."
Pyongyang later claimed that Warmbier had contracted botulism and consequently died from the disease, but doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said they found no traces of active botulism.
A federal judge awarded the Warmbier family more than half a billion dollars in a wrongful death suit against the North Korean government last December. But so far, the regime has not engaged in settlement discussions.
Politics at play
Political observers who talked to the The Sydney Morning Herald said they believed Sigley's detention had more to do with the Trump-Kim talks on June 30 than any acts of espionage.
That is, Joseph Camilleri, a professor specializing in international relations at La Trobe University, told the newspaper that it was impossible the regime had not been fully aware of Sigley's activities since the moment he arrived. It was clear, he added, that Sigley had been detained not because the regime was concerned about the content of his writing but because of the broader diplomatic context, according to the Australian newspaper.
Detaining an American citizen while Washington-Pyongyang background talks were being conducted would have risked inflaming the situation too much, the professor told the Herald, adding that holding someone from a U.S.-allied nation would send a "signal that it wanted to see a significant outcome from the meeting."
Once the decision was made to arrest Sigley, the pariah nation "had to explain his absence for over a week," so it opted to accuse him of spying, Leonid Petrov of the Australian National University told The Sydney Morning Herald.
– CNBC's Natasha Turak and Christine Wang contributed to this report.
Cpl. Anthony Forbes, an assault amphibious vehicle crew chief with India Company, Battalion Landing Team, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, heads toward land during rehearsals for Exercise Talisman Saber 17 near the Australian Defence Force’s Cowley Beach Training Area, Queensland, Australia, July 8, 2017.U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Amaia Unanue
The Australian military is monitoring a Chinese surveillance vessel believed to have been sent to spy on the Talisman Saber war games being held on the coast of Queensland.
The People's Liberation Army Navy Type 815G Dongdiao-class Auxiliary General Intelligence (AGI) ship is now sailing toward Australia, presumably to observe the joint military exercises involving American, Australian, and Japanese forces, Australia's ABC News reported, revealing that up to 25,000 troops will be participating in the "high-end" warfighting exercises.
"We're tracking it," Lt. Gen. Greg Bilton, Chief of Defense Joint Operations, explained Saturday. "We don't know yet what its destination is, but we're assuming that it will come down to the east coast of Queensland, and we'll take appropriate measures in regards to that." He did not elaborate on the response.
He did, however, acknowledge that the Chinese ship is in international waters, where it has the right to sail and, if it so desires, conduct surveillance operations.
"All nations have the right under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to conduct military surveillance operations in international waters outside a state's 12 nautical mile territorial sea," Ashley Townshend, Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the United States Studies Centre in Sydney, told news.com.au.
"While the US and Australia — along with most other nations — accept this principle and grant it to China, Beijing does not extend this right to other nations in the South China Sea, where it routinely chases away foreign vessels."
China has long objected to "close-in surveillance" by the US Navy near its shores, despite the People's Liberation Army Navy routinely doing the same.
Chinese AGI vessels have, in recent years, been making frequent appearances at the joint military exercises in the Pacific. The Australian Defence Department told reporters that it is "aware that there will likely be interest from other countries in exercise Talisman Saber."
One of China's AGI vessels was spotted lurking off the Australian coast 2017 during the last iteration of the Talisman Saber exercises.
The Chinese navy was disinvited from participating in 2018 Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercises in response to the militarization of the South China Sea by Chinese forces. Nonetheless, China sent one of its spy ships to monitor the exercises from off the coast of Hawaii.
"We've taken all precautions necessary to protect our critical information. The ship's presence has not affected the conduct of the exercise," US Pacific Fleet spokesman Capt. Charlie Brown told USNI News at the time.
By allowing the Chinese military to engage in these types of surveillance activities, the US and its allies are hopeful that China will eventually offer the reciprocity it has thus far been unwilling to grant, Ankit Panda, senior editor at The Diplomat, argued.
"For international rules to function they must be reciprocated," Townshend told news.com.au.
Australian military officials speaking on the condition of anonymity told local broadcaster ABC News that they suspected that a new aspect of Japan's participation in this year's Talisman Saber drills has piqued China's interests.
"This year's Talisman Saber involves the Japanese Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade, which was created last year primarily as a response option for potential Chinese incursion in the Senkaku Islands," one official told reporters, adding, "Their capability and interoperability with Australia and the United States will be of interest to Beijing."
China has not yet commented on the matter.
