A Waratah spokesman told ILN that Palmer was just awaiting Queensland government approvals.

“Other than that everything is in place, he has got his finance in place, he has got forward contracts, he’s got his customers, he just needs the approval process to go through,” the spokesman said.

“Once he has got the tick on that then he will catch up to where everyone else is at.”

Hancock plans to develop a two-berth 40 million tonnes per annum coal export terminal in the northern section of land slated for development by the state government as part of Abbot Point.

First coal exports remain scheduled for 2013.

The spokesman said Waratah was going through the community consultation processes.

Despite recent media attention, he said there was nothing new going on but as soon as there was “Clive will certainly let everyone know about it”.

In late April both Hancock and BHP Billiton received preferred developer status to each build a new 30Mtpa terminal at Abbot Point.

Last week Hancock received approval for a $A2 billion rail corridor to connect its Alpha coal mine in the Galilee Basin to the port.

Waratah’s China First project in the region is targeting 40Mtpa and the thermal coal resources were upgraded to 7.4 billion tonnes in February.