Adani losing interest in Galilee Basin as it turns focus to renewables

IEEFA

coalindiacoalAdani Enterprises this week reported its first-quarter results for the 2015-16 financial year, and the earnings report includes one singular 27-word sentence that suggests the company’s once-ambitious mine designs on Australia have petered out.

Here’s the passage:

“With progressive policy measures by the government, we believe that Adani Enterprises is better placed to tap the growth potential in domestic mining and renewable energy space.”

Adani is an Indian company, and the government of which it speaks is the government of India, which—as we’ve noted frequently in this space over the past few months and in deep detail in a major report we published earlier this week—is on a historical mission to transform its electricity sector.

When Adani says it’s “better placed” to focus on domestic mining, one might reasonably ask better than what? On its former obsession with turning the Galilee Basin of Northern Queensland into one of the biggest open-pit coal fields in the world with its Carmichael mine project, a proposition that seems all but doomed now as banks step back from supporting it, as public opposition mounts, as—by Adani’s own admission above—the company’s better bet now is elsewhere.

That elsewhere is being shaped and defined at an astonishing pace by the administration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in office now for only a year or so and in charge of an India government that is remaking its power sector. Cornerstones of the Indian electricity revolution include aggressive development of renewable resources, crackdowns and improvements to grid efficiency, new mechanisms to encourage foreign investments, and an eventually likely end to coal imports.

ADANI HAS ITS EGGS IN FAR MORE BASKETS, ANYWAY, THAN THE GALILEE BASIN. It owns a major coal-trading business in India, an Indian agricultural trading business, an Indian gas-distribution business, a 4-5Mtpa coal mine in Indonesia, three major coal deposits in India (with its first Indian mine now online producing at an annualized 3-4Mtpa rate) and a 648-megawatt, US$700 million solar development in Tamil Nadu, the first of many similar proposed projects.

Adani Enterprises has an equity book value of US$2 billion and net debt of US$3 billion, which means the company after its recent corporate restructuring has a net debt-to-equity ratio of 150 percent, which means in turn that the group is already fully leveraged even before financing the large number of new expansion projects under consideration. This detail confirms that the larger Adani Group will use Adani Enterprises (rather than the excessively leveraged Adani Power) as its vehicle for developing more than US$10 billion on various solar-manufacturing and solar-project initiatives in India.

ITS NEW AMBITIONS ON THIS FRONT ARE APPARENT. AT ITS ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING THIS WEEK, Adani Enterprises received approval to undertake an equity raising of up to US$950 million should the need arise. Such a move would leave the group with a more sensible level of financial leverage, but would also leave it well short of the capital required to develop its many projects in India, let alone enough to undertake the Galilee coal proposal.

One other note, Adani Enterprises reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) had increased18 percent year over year to US$149 million and net profit after tax was up 43 percent year over year to US$59 million for quarter that ended in June, despite revenues having falling 9 percent year over year. The losses associated with the development of the Carmichael project—years in the making now even as the odds against it actually being built diminish day by day—most likely continue to be capitalized against the balance sheet rather than through the income statement.

Carmichael, it seems, is no longer the hope, nor the priority it was.

Tim Buckley is IEEFA’s director of energy finance studies, Australasia.

Source: IEEFA. Reproduced with permission.

Comments

10 responses to “Adani losing interest in Galilee Basin as it turns focus to renewables”

  1. Paul Turnbull Avatar

    Well that about it then for Adani and Carmichael. Given the sunk costs, the considerable influence of its well connected advisers – it seems that even the short sighted support a state and federal governments, political parties of most persuasions – is not enough to get this mind blowing daft project off the ground. Lets hope that various parties involved in supporting planet killing projects like this put their considerable talents to work on more far sighted endeavours. Thanks Tim for informed and balanced reporting. I like your work.

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  2. Phil Patterson Avatar
    Phil Patterson

    Surely you would now expect them to formally scrap this project Tim?

  3. Ian Avatar
    Ian

    Good lesson here. Don’t let good looking strangers sweep you off your feet. They will promise the earth, sweet-talk you, ravage you and then dump you for a prettier prospect back home!

    1. Jacob Avatar
      Jacob

      Mr Adani is good looking?

  4. john Avatar
    john

    Adani have realised that the project is beyond their ability to finance.
    The figures never stacked up.
    The delivered price of the product is too high so the only course of action is to close any further waste of money into this venture.
    As to others trying to get thermal coal exported I wish them well but have a very strong feeling they face the same basic cost and will mean that this is just a fail.

    1. Jacob Avatar
      Jacob

      The price of thermal coal has crashed.

      The people of Beijing do not want to choke on coal pollution any more.

      More and more people in other cities do not want to choke either.

  5. Malcolm M Avatar
    Malcolm M

    On another forum there was a comment that Adani were greatly reducing staff at their Brisbane project office. Perhaps there is a project budget already signed off at Board level, which the project team are continuing to use. A project kill would need an extensively researched Board paper(several months), then its consideration by the Board (several months).

  6. Jacob Avatar
    Jacob

    Finally.

  7. FIFO69 Avatar
    FIFO69

    For someone that has had an illustrious career in finance the article seems to be missing a bit of detail around how projects like this are evaluated and final investment decisions are made.

    Let me provide some basic project financial evaluation background reading.
    A project like this will go through various stages: scoping study, pre-feasibility study, feasibility study, bankable feasibility study, before the final investment decision is made by the board. At each stage of the project various studies are undertaken and all of the options and risks are identified and carefully evaluated and decisions are made to modify the project to address those risks and maximise financial returns. At each stage recommendations are made to either progress to the next stage or shelf or divest the project.

    The project is subject to detailed financial modelling and cashflow forecasting based on capital and operating costs with a high level of sensitivity analysis of the major inputs and assumptions (sale price, exchange rate, taxes and royalties, capex and opex fluctuations over the life of mine). The NPV, IRR and payback period are determined.

    The decision to pursue environmental approvals is a good indicator that the financials stack up mate.

    You don’t spend hundreds of millions of dollars on approvals and defending against vexatious litigation unless there is something of value to protect at the end of the day.

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