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The company will seek to capitalise on its $US5billion ($A4.85 billion) investment in port and rail infrastructure in Queensland to create a more integrated operation in the northern Bowen Basin, he reportedly told the AFR.

“In the past, each mine had its own development sequence,” he reportedly said.

“What we are now doing is just like in iron ore, we take the whole basin, we look at the highest margin product and we do that first and so on.”

BHP is planning to build its own dedicated railway from the Goonyella mining hub to the 60 million tonnes per annum Abbot Point coal terminal, where it is the preferred developer.

By integrated its mining, rail and port operations, BHP would seek to make its operations more efficient and then transfer the model to other operating hubs.

BHP Billiton’s Queensland coal operations form a “ resource basin” which meet the company’s “tier one” criteria of being large scale, long-life and low-cost. It will also generate many new projects in quick succession, Kloppers recently told its annual general meeting.

“They [resource basins such as Queensland coal] are assets where we can apply our extensive intellectual capital as well as evolving technological innovation to extract decades worth of organic growth that is both highly profitable and relatively low risk,” he said.

“Our hub-based organisational model allows us to set up and construct many projects in succession in the same resource basin, using the same teams. This approach provides simplicity and scalability and ensures that we can develop and retain specialist talent, therefore continuously improving our ability to execute major projects.”

On the subject of the long term price of coking coal, Kloppers reportedly said the strength of the Australian dollar could be a major determinant, given the proportion of its global seaborne trade from Australia.

“Certain categories of metallurgical coal are almost an Australian-dollar denominated produce in that the inducement price of met coal in Australia will set to a very significant extent the long-run prices,” Kloppers reportedly said.

“And clearly if the Australian dollar is lower, that long-run price will be lower. If the Australian dollar is higher, the long-run price will be higher.”