Earlier this week it was reported Resources Minister Matt Canavan clashed with Mr Morrison about the Collinsville project, over delay on progressing the business case.

Shine Energy, an indigenous traditional owner company, is seeking to build the plant at an expected cost of $2 billion, creating about 2000 jobs.

Mr Morrison told a Queensland Resources Council lunch on Friday he was committed to completing a study on north Queensland's heavy industry electricity needs by the end of the year.

"That will identify the key projects that can go forward from that," he said.

"And obviously there's the Collinsville project which strikes me as being a particularly useful project.

"But it's got to go through the same processes as all the other projects and to identify what's the best way we can support ensuring that no Queensland's heavy industry requirements are met."

Mr Morrison was asked by a British television reporter how Australia could justify expanding the coal industry while the government's own reports suggested climate change was the greatest threat to the Great Barrier Reef.

"Because we have the best mining industry in the world," Mr Morrison said, to audience applause.

"That understands how to do the job properly and to do it sensitively and to care for the environment."

Australian Associated Press