Deutsche Bank Refuses to Fund Coal Port in Australia

Economic Times reported that Deutsche Bank has refused to fund the expansion of one of the world’s biggest coal ports by India’s Adani Group near the ecologically sensitive Great Barrier Reef in Australia after protests by green activists. Australia approved the major coal port expansion at Abbot Point last year subject to strict environmental conditions. But environmentalists fought back. Deutsche Bank said it would not entertain financial applications for the port development because there was no consensus over the environmental impact of the port development and associated dredging. Two Indian companies, Adani and GVK, which is in a joint venture with iron-ore billionaire Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting, want to expand the port between Townsville and Mackay to ship out tens of millions of metric tons of thermal coal from a planned new complex of mines in the Galilee Basin.