Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis report author and financial analyst Tim Buckley told the ABC that Adani was “betting the entire company on their Australian foray into opening the Galilee".

On the financial front, he was concerned about the performance of Adani’s core power generating business.

“Their core business isn't making money and they're not able to cover the interest costs,” he reportedly said.

“So debt, when you’re not making money, is a problem."

In his attack over Carmichael’s commerciality, he said coal prices had fallen 40% since Adani acquired it, which "dramatically changes all of the economics relating to this entire project".

Adani reportedly countered the Greenpeace-commissioned IEEFA report by saying it had complete confidence in its coal and Abbot Point terminal projects in Queensland.

The Indian group said Greenpeace was motivated by "short-sighted vested interests that ignore the long-term fundamentals".

Updated yet still ambitious plans

As part of its recently released supplementary environmental impact statement documentation, Adani shed more light on timeframes and introduced a stronger focus on underground mining.

The revisions included reducing the operating life from 90 years to 60 years, cutting the planned open cut pits from 16 to six, while increasing the planned underground mines from one to five.

The project is still targeting up to a whopping 60 million tonnes per annum from the thermal coal basin, with the first open cut planned for 2016 at a production rate of 5.5Mtpa run of mine.

Open cut mining is forecast, under the SEIS’ updated mine project description document, to expand to 19Mtpa run of mine in the next year and reach 25.5Mtpa ROM in 2018, the year that development and initial longwall production from the first underground mine is expected to reach 2.5Mtpa ROM.

The document indicated the longwall mine would produce a record-breaking 18.8Mtpa ROM in 2019 – with a rate of 10Mtpa ROM proven too hard to beat in Australia’s longwall history.

Another three underground coal mines were slated to start during the 2020-24 period in which Adani expected to dramatically increase open cut production to 239.5Mt ROM, almost 60Mtpa ROM, while underground production was tipped to amazingly hit 99.7Mt ROM – a rate of almost 20Mtpa ROM from one completed and three under development underground mines.

Longwall production was forecast to start from two of the mines in the 2025-29 period, giving Adani three longwall operations and a fourth under construction underground mine, which would produce development coal.

Adani expected to produce 100.8Mtpa ROM in the five-year period, amounting to 20.16Mtpa ROM across the four underground sites, while open cut mining was forecast to reach 270Mt ROM for the period.

The 2025-29 period is also the planned peak production timeframe for the project, with total output of 370.8Mt ROM (74Mtpa) expected to yield 300.6Mt of product coal (60Mtpa).

The fifth longwall operation was expected to start in the 2040-44 period while the first longwall was expected to close in the 2030-34 timeframe.