Adani bags $2.7-billion deal to acquire Australian coal mine

Diversified conglomerate Adani Enterprises Ltd will acquire a 100-per cent stake in the Galilee coal block in the Galilee Basin in Queensland from Australia's Linc Energy Ltd, for around $2.68 billion.

Adani will make a down payment of around A$500 million (US$455 million) in addition to an A$2 per tonne production-linked royalty payment extending up to 20 years. The coal block can produce up to 60 million tonnes per year once the mine becomes fully operational. This works out the acquisition cost to around A$2.94 billion (US$2.68 billion).

Adani Enterprises will acquire the Queensland coal block through its step-down subsidiary Adani Mining Pte Ltd, the company said in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

The Foreign Investment Review Board of Queensland has already approved the deal, Adani said.

Linc has been trying to hive-off its Emerald coal tenements known as Teresa located in Queensland since September 2008, and had then announced that it had signed a $1.5 billion heads of agreement with China's Xinwen Mining, but the global recession led to the deal collapsing.

By late April 2009, apart from Emerald coal tenements, Linc added its Galilee and Pentland coal assets to the sale.