The World’s Most Controversial Coal Mine Doesn’t Add Up.

Is the world’s most bitterly contested coal mine finally getting the go-ahead?

After the opposition Labor party suffered heavy losses in coal-mining regions in Saturday’s Australian federal elections, the Carmichael project looks to be getting closer than ever to approval. In the view of the government's resources minister Matt Canavan, the pit being developed by Adani Mining Pty., a unit of Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s business empire, is all systems go:

Fired up! - in support of the Adani project.

There's a rarely discussed problem with this, though: The numbers on Carmichael don’t stack up – and haven't for most of the past decade, despite the mine becoming a high-profile proxy for broader fights over fossil fuels among politicians, lobbyists and environmentalists. (An Adani spokeswoman said our assumptions were incorrect, but didn't dispute any specific figures or provide alternative ones. "The Carmichael Project economics are strong and are projected to remain strong," she wrote.)

Read the Bloomberg story by David Fickling - “The World’s Most Controversial Coal Mine Doesn’t Add Up.”