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The group won state approval for the proposed route, which is crucial to its $10-billion coal and rail project and other projects in the untapped basin.

The biggest hurdle to the Galilee Basin projects is affordable access to the port, as the region is much further from the coast than Queensland's other coal-rich basins.

“We are eager to cooperate with third parties in such development but also keep open the option of going it alone as deemed in our best business interests,” Adani Group Australia chief executive Harsh Mishra said in a statement this week.

Another Indian firm, GVK Power and Infrastructure, is also planning a brand new 500-km rail line for its $10-billion Alpha coal, rail and port project, on a route to Abbot Point.

GVK also won approval from the government of Queensland this week, which will acquire land for GVK's new north-south rail line, as well as for an east-west line proposed by QR National Limited.

Australian coal rail operator QR National and Adani had proposed projects along the same corridor.

Meanwhile, the Adani Group was also weighing its options to acquire some of the Canadian oil sands assets being divested by ConocoPhillips.

Any successful bid could cost the group over $5 billion, but the company has declined to confirm or deny its plans at this stage.

Houston-based ConocoPhillips had announced in January that it plans to sell a stake in six Alberta properties that produce 12,000 barrels of oil a day. The company has appointed the investment banking arm of Bank of Nova Scotia to run the auction process for the sale of the assets.

India’s state-run oil explorer, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC), is also reportedly in the market for the assets.