New $15bn coal mine in Australia to hire over 5,000 workers

The developer of Australia’s US$15bn Carmichael coal mine, one of the world’s largest fossil fuel projects, said it will start hiring the over 5,000 people it needs for the construction phase beginning next year.

With the announcement, Adani Group —an Indian conglomerate with interests spanning mining, energy and logistics— has doubled the estimates made when the coal mine and rail project got its final approval.

Designed to eventually produce 60 million tonnes of thermal coal a year, the project consists of six open-cut pits and up to five underground mines, to supply coal-hungry Indian power plants with enough of the fossil fuel to generate electricity for up to 100 million people.

According to Ferret Group Media, Adani is accepting resume submissions through its website. It will be hiring for coal exploration, coal mining, rail construction and operations, infrastructure construction, and port expansion and operations.

The port Adani will use, Abbot Point, has been the centre of heated debate, as conservationists opposed a proposed expansion on the ground the project would dredge up 3 million cubic metres of sand and then dump it near the Great Barrier Reef.

Opposition to the port expansion and the proposed Galilee basin coal mines has grown in recent weeks. First UNESCO warned it might place the Great Barrier Reef on its endangered list as a result of the port expansion. And last week US ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s launched a Save the Reef campaign that prompted authorities to call a boycott from Australian consumers, as they claim it is “propaganda” that has damaged the reputation of the reef, jeopardizing jobs and tourism dollars.

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