“Adani last week advised four major engineering contractors to stop work on projects around the Carmichael mine in Queensland including a joint venture rail line and the expansion of Abbot Point port,”The Guardian exclusively reported.

“Industry sources said the move to suspend preparatory work by WorleyParsons and Aecon, Aurecon and SMEC at this stage of a project was unheard of and made no sense as a savings measure even amid delays.”

The UK-based newspaper, which has an editorial campaign called “keep it in the ground” which includes opposing coal mining, claimed that a team of up to 40 engineers at Worley’s Brisbane office were among those pulled.

This team was reportedly working with Aecon on the rail joint venture associated with Adani’s giant Carmichael thermal coal project.

“A senior engineering industry source said it was difficult to read the move as anything but ‘Adani beginning to run up the white flag’ on the project,” the newspaper reported.

“The cost of contracts for engineering design and proposals, at several million dollars a year, was negligible in the context of a multibillion-dollar project and Adani would need the work done in any case, the source said.”

Adani’s main media contact is overseas for a month yet the Australian arm of the Indian conglomerate still managed to release a statement yesterday.

While it did not challenge The Guardian’s claims, even though they triggered the need for the statement to be released, Adani did emphasise the challenges faced on the approvals front.

“For the past six to 12 months, Adani has maintained a level of investment, jobs and sub-contractor engagement for its mine, rail and port projects in anticipation of finalising approvals and decisions,” Adani said.

“The project budget was based, understandably, on these anticipated approvals timelines and milestones. As a result of changes to a range of approvals over that time, it’s necessary to synchronise our budget, project timelines and spending to meet those changes.”

Adani said it had made a commitment to build a long term future with Queensland that will deliver 10,000 jobs and $A22 billion in royalties and taxes that will be reinvested back into community services.

“However, it is important to note we are now into the fifth year of development and approvals and therefore the need to finalise those approvals and timelines is critical,” Adani said.

The engineering cutback news curiously follows Adani’s recent decision to order a total of 55 units of 960E-2 and 930E-4SE super-large dump trucks from Komatsu.

Delivery was expected from the second half of 2016 for use at Adani’s proposed Carmichael coal mine in Queensland.

According to previous planning, the ambitious $A16.5 billion thermal coal project will involve the development of six open pits and five underground mines over 60 years, with the first surface operation to start in 2016 with a production rate of 5.5 million tonnes per annum.

The project includes a 388km rail development to link the open cut and underground project to Adani’s Abbot Point coal terminal 25km north of Bowen on the coast, which needs to be expanded to reach full ramp up plans of 60Mtpa.

Initial longwall production from the first underground mine was expected to reach 2.5Mtpa run-of-mine in 2018.

The broader Adani Group conglomerate is India’s leading coal importer and owns the biggest privately owned port in the country.