Government, Labor block calls for investigation into Adani

The federal government and Labor have used their numbers to block an inquiry into which companies or individuals control Australia's largest coal development, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Greens Senator Larissa Waters accused the opposition on Monday of being too close to the mining industry after it failed to support an urgent investigation into the ownership structure of Indian company Adani’s Carmichael coal project in Queensland.

Deloitte says commodity price slump will blow hole in budget

The spectre of a complete unravelling of commodity prices back to pre-boom levels would add as much as $114 billion to the deficit over the next four years – driving up debt and highlighting the need for Australia to escalate budget repair, according to the Australian Financial Review.

After months of sharp falls in prices for iron ore, coal and liquefied natural gas, a report by Deloitte Access Economics urges Canberra to urgently take a more aggressive view of how rapidly prices will fall from here.

BHP prepares to make opportunistic oil plays

BHP Billiton is prepared to buy conventional oil projects in order to arrest a looming fall in oil production, but will wait until it beds down its planned $US15 billion ($19.2 billion) spin-off South32 in June, according to the Australian Financial Review.

BHP chief Andrew Mackenzie dismissed acquisition prospects as recently as last week, but conventional offshore oil is set to be the exception. Mackenzie, a 22-year veteran of oil major BP, has been talking internally and to investors about the need to buy more offshore oil assets.