At a time when there is a raging debate on whether coal or natural gas should be the country's fuel of the future, Gautam Adani, chairman of the Rs 27,800-crore, Ahmedabad-based Adani group, has opted for imported coal. Last week, Adani Mining, the Australian subsidiary of Adani Enterprises, acquired coal assets of Australia's Linc Energy on the continent's eastern coast in a cash and royalty deal worth A$2.9 billion — the biggest buy by an Indian company Down Under. Next up are South African coal mines which are said to be on Adani's radar. Adani will develop a terminal at Dudgeon Point near Queensland to ship coal from Australia's largest mine — reserves of 7.8 billion tonne — to fire up his power dreams — the group aims to generate 20,000 MW by 2020. In all, the group plans to invest A $6 billion in Australia to develop infrastructure - ports, railway lines and warehouses. The group's is increasingly becoming dependent on imported coal, which has a higher calorific value. The Queensland mine is likely to generate 50 million tonne per annum. Add to this, 70 million tonne from Orissa and Chhatisgarh, where the group mines coal, and its Indodesian mines which yield about seven million tonne.
The next port of call, where the Adanis are eyeing coal mines, is South Africa. It is also planning a port each in the Rainbow Nation and Vietnam. ''You have coal mines, ships and ports. And, you have power plants as well as transmission lines. It's a win-win for all businesses as costs would come down substantially,'' says an analyst, who points at the importance of ports in the group's other businesses like coal trading - Adanis plan 200 million tonne of coal mining and 50 million tonne of coal trading by 2020.
Adani, which manages India's largest private port in Mundra, plans to dot the Indian coastline with as many as seven ports - Dahej and Hazira in Gujarat and one each at Mormugao in Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Paradip in Orissa. Adani Shipping too will have a bigger fleet.
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