Asia Energy is convinced that the Bangladeshi government will not after all cancel its planned £1 billion open-cast coal mine which could involve moving anything from 40,000 to 100,000 people.

The shares, suspended on August 31, fell 2.5p to 115p when they came back to the market today. They were 490p in March.

In August the Bangladeshi government said it had bowed to protests which had led to six deaths in riots.

But Asia Energy states that it has had no notification from the government and no changes to its contract. It notes, however, that ‘the project remains conditional on the adoption of the government’s proposed new coal policy’.

The Asia Energy management is unavailable to expand on what this actually means.

Protestors claimed 100,000 would be displaced – Asia Energy says the real figure is ‘only’ 40,000 for 30 years.

But it is far from clear that the project will get the go ahead. The experiences earlier this year of the Indian multinational company, Tata Steel, exemplifies many of these problems.

The company proposed the construction of a $2 billion steel plant which was set to become Bangladesh's largest ever foreign investment. But on-going haggling over the price for gas supply became the chief stumbling block.