In central Queensland, across kilometres of brown-green scrubland, orange locomotives are hauling steel-grey wagons loaded with a controversial commodity and a $155 million error.

The commodity is coal from Adani’s Carmichael mine, shunted on its 189 kilometre railway. The error is about a value once ascribed to using that railway. It’s among a string of discrepancies involving hundreds of millions of dollars on Adani accounts about its local operations, an investigation by The Australian Financial Review can reveal.