The Australian arm of the Indian conglomerate linked this news to the older revelations that Carmichael work for WorleyParsons and Aecon, Aurecon and SMEC was suspended last month.

“Suggestions in a media report of a fresh decision in relation to project management and execution contracts are simply not true,” an Adani spokeswoman said in a statement.

“As indicated when asked, the current changes are connected to the same engineering contracts and preliminary works variations Adani announced last month.

“The preliminary works contracts were previously sustained due to the level of investment Adani had maintained for more than 12 months in anticipation of a range of government decisions and approvals timeframes.

“As we announced on 24 June 2015, a number of changes in the approvals processes meant these timeframes had to be adjusted.”

A Parsons spokeswoman did not comment on the recent press reports, referring enquiries to Adani.

The various planning stage cutback news curiously follows Adani’s earlier decision last month 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.