The Adani Group purchased APCT from the Queensland government last year, using approximately $US2 billion of bridge acquisition financing from the State Bank of India and Standard Chartered Bank.

Freehills said the majority of this bridge acquisition had now been refinanced.

The refinancing necessitated a corporate restructuring of Adani’s Australian subsidiaries, complex negotiations regarding the refinancing including US and Australian dollar swap arrangements, and ensuring the interests of both the continuing international bridge acquisition financiers and the new project financiers were protected.

Joel Rennie, who was a part of the Freehills project finance team, said Adani’s refinancing would enable the company to progress with its handful of projects in Australia.

“With the capital structure of the APCT now diversified, it puts Adani in a strong position to focus on its expansion plans for the APCT and the development of its coal mine and related infrastructure projects in Queensland,” Rennie said.

The APCT is Australia’s northernmost coal port and has a current capacity of 50 million tonnes per annum.

The $A9 billion proposed expansion will see export capacity at the port rise to 400Mtpa by 2017.

Coal is supplied to the terminal by rail from the Sonoma, Newlands, Collinsville mines and the “missing link” rail line.

The APCT also exports coal from the central Bowen Basin mines.