Aurizon to withdraw funding bid for rail project

Rail freight operator Aurizon will withdraw an application for funding to assist with a rail project that could have served the controversial Adani coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

Aurizon has withdrawn a bid for funding assistance. 

Supporters of the Aurizon proposal had hoped the rail line would help open the basin to new coal mines, after Adani's funding bid for its own rail line was vetoed by the Queensland government.

Aurizon had applied for a taxpayer-funded concessional loan under the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, which is designed to boost investment in Northern Australia.

Aurizon’s managing director, Andrew Harding, said although the company was in discussion with several entities hoping to develop mines in the vast thermal coal basin, it had not progressed to “definitive contractual arrangements with any proponent”.

Read Darren Gray’s story in today’s Age - “Aurizon to withdraw funding bid for rail project.”