Plans presented by Port Waratah Coal Services general manager Graham Davidson showed the potential for as many as 10 coal ships to tie up along Kooragang.

The Hunter Business Chamber quarterly mining forum at the Caves Beachside resort heard Mr Davidson and two other speakers Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group general manager Paul Beale and Bloomfield Group chief executive William Cant give optimistic appraisals of the industry's future.

Mr Beale said NCIG's new Kooragang loader was 95 per cent complete and the NCIG board was soon to make an announcement on plans to proceed with a second stage, which would more than double the loader's capacity to 66 million tonnes.

Mr Davidson said PWCS could handle 113 million tonnes of coal a year 25 million at Carrington and 88 million at Kooragang and was working on plans to take combined capacity to 145 million tonnes or even beyond.

Under an industry expansion agreement worked out with the State Government last year, PWCS gained the right to build a fourth Newcastle loader, code-named T4.

Mr Davidson said it was too early to say how much T4 would handle, but it would have to be at least 30 million tonnes a year.