The Queensland Resources Council says record coal export figures add further weight to the case for port expansion.

Queensland exported 209 million tonnes during the past financial year, 25 million tonnes more than the previous record set in 2009-10.

QRC chief executive Michael Roche says that equates to 84 per cent of available port capacity being used.

“We’re gobbling up that port capacity at a great rate of knots.”

Mr Roche’s comments come after a series of senate inquiry hearings into the management of the Great Barrier Reef and the future impact port development may have.

“There is no spare capacity in the system,” he says.

“For the activists … who say that our coal ports are vastly underutilised, they’re simply wrong; it’s just part of their anti-coal propaganda.”

However, the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Felicity Wishart says the resources sector should focus on improving efficiency.

“We have a magnificent Great Barrier Reef – a $6 billion tourism asset employing 63,000 people – that needs to be protected from port expansion and that’s where we need to be placing our economic future.

“We need to ensure we are being as efficient as possible with our existing infrastructure.

“Many of the coal mines that are currently exporting are not doing so in an economic manner.”

QRC data shows 25 per cent of Queensland’s coal is currently produced at a loss, with particularly weak prices for thermal coal.

Mr Roche maintains the controversial development at the port of Abbot Point, near Bowen, is critical to allow for the export of coal from proposed mines in the Galilee Basin.

The Indian-based miner Adani has the right to develop the Terminal-0 expansion project at Abbot Point.

It will be the key export facility for the company’s $16 billion Carmichael project, near Clermont, which could become Australia’s largest coal mine with production of up to 60 million tonnes per year.

Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt has until August 1 to decide whether the Carmichael project can proceed.