Last month Queensland Deputy Premier and State Development Minister Jeff Seeney said the originally proposed expansion was too ambitious and would be downsized from six wharves with a 385 million tonne per annum capacity to only two wharves with a 240Mtpa capacity.

Reaffirmation of government plans to expand the coal port also coincides with increasing pressure on federal environmental officials to put a moratorium on the project until a comprehensive strategic assessment of Great Barrier Reef ports is put into place.

Seeney said development plans for three new terminals were already underway and that the completion of T0, T2 and T3 would increase the port’s capacity from 200Mtpa to 360Mtpa.

“We will be working hard to obtain the remaining approvals for the T0-T3 expansion at Abbot Point,” he said.

“We will be discussing with industry what additional capacity is need beyond that.”

In May, Seeney criticised the Bligh government’s strategy for Abbot Point as being too broad and lacking open-ended flexibility.

“Our approach to expansion of infrastructure at Abbot Point is a more practical, more realistic, more sensible and more deliverable plan than the unrealistic and undeliverable proposals from the former, failed Bligh government,” he said.

Abbot Point handles 50Mtpa of coal from the state’s Bowen and Galilee Basin miners.

Meanwhile the Queensland Resources Council believes the draft decision of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee emphasises the importance of assessing cumulative impacts of development.

“The Abbot Point cumulative impact assessment is believed the first of its kind in Australia where major project proponents at one location have joined to voluntarily and collaboratively to examine the cumulative impacts from all proposed projects,” QRC chief executive Michael Roche said.

“The participants are North Queensland Bulk Ports and the three most advanced coal project proponents at Abbot Point – Adani, BHP Billiton and GVK Hancock.”

The assessment involves 15 individual expert studies, with each of the organisations involved sharing leadership and costs on individual studies.

The studies will be incorporated into a cumulative impact assessment report released in the second half of 2012 for public consultation and government review.

Details of the studies and cumulative impact assessment report were presented to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s reactive monitoring mission during its visit to Queensland in March 2012.