Queensland coal companies are profitable customers of Queensland Rail National and in a position to pay the best price for the mooted 60% privatisation of the company by the state government, Greiner told Sky Business.

"Nobody would expect the Queensland government is going to take a less valuable outcome than they can get," he said.

"At the end of the day, this is about maximising the volume of coal that gets down the rail line, through the port and off to customers.

"The coal companies, obviously with their existing mines, have significant growth prospects ... and they do have expansion plans and it is the case that the profitability of the coal industry is very high at the moment."

He said QCIRG was in discussions with the Australian Rail Track Corporation and he expected they would be part of the bid for QR.

The 13-member coal company consortium – which forms the vanguard of Queensland's coal exports – has indicated it will make a conditional bid for the rail assets by the end of May.

Meanwhile, Queensland Resources Council chief executive Michael Roche said in the absence of a customer-aligned ownership and structure, the coal industry would have to rely on a “second-best” policy response to mitigate the worst aspects of the proposed QR privatisation model.

“The coal industry will be asking the Queensland Competition Authority (QCA) and the government to impose a brace of strict regulatory protections within the access regime and the formal lease documents. We will also be seeking supporting amendments to the QCA Act,” he told a CEDA luncheon briefing in Brisbane on Friday.

“The access regime issue is a framework for third-party access to the rail network, which is very different from addressing incentives to misuse monopoly power.

“Industry will need a regulatory regime in place that addresses the perverse incentives for a non-aligned, vertically integrated railway business to abuse its monopoly power at the expense of third-party operators and coal industry operations.”