Mozambique seeks Rio data on Riversdale

The Mozambique government has reportedly called for its own review of the Rio Tinto coal data that along with infrastructure problems led to a $US3 billion write-down of the coking coal assets and the replacement of former chief executive Tom Albanese, according to The Australian.

According to a report quoting Portuguese news agency Lusa, Mozambique deputy mining minister Abdul Razak told reporters in Maputo the government wanted to see Rio's data so it could carry out its own checks of information that led Rio to downgrade resources and reserves at ground obtained in Rio's $3.9 billion acquisition of Riversdale Mining in 2011.

Australian coal to lead to further emissions, says Greenpeace

The forecast expansion of Australian coal mining and exports would be the world's second largest contributor of new carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels if fully realised, research by Greenpeace International has found, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

An analysis of the planet's 14 largest proposed, coal, oil and gas developments – to be released on Wednesday by Greenpeace – finds if Australian coal production expands as projected, the mining, production and burning of the extra resource would, by 2020, result in 759 million tonnes of new global carbon dioxide emissions a year over 2011 levels.

But emissions from Australian coal growth would be eclipsed by proposed coal production in western China, projected to result in 1400 million tonnes of annual CO2 emissions by 2020.

Coal outfit paid Obeid’s man $200k, ICAC told

A former Lehman Brothers banker linked to the family of former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid was paid $A200,000 by a coal explorer for negotiating a deal with a company secretly owned by the Obeids, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Wayne Mitchell, the chairman of junior miner Coalworks until it was taken over by Whitehaven Coal last year, told the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption on Tuesday that he received a phone call from Gardner Brook around August 2009 about a coal deal.

ICAC has heard that Brook, a former senior vice-president at Lehman Brothers in Sydney, was acting as a front for the Obeids.

Mitchell told the inquiry that Brook wanted a $350,000 “brokerage fee” to set up a deal in which Monaro Mining, a company secretly owned by the Obeids, would withdraw its winning bid for a coal exploration licence over land in regional NSW known as Yarrawa, now Ferndale.

The deal was revised so that Monaro Mining remained a partner in the coal venture, split 90:10 between Coalworks and Monaro, rather than withdrawing its bid. Coalworks paid Brook $200,000.