A Resourcehouse spokesman said it simply made a mistake when announcing a widely publicised deal with China Power International Development Limited, following a strenuous denial from the company.

The deal, touted as Australia's biggest ever export contract, was in fact struck with its similarly named parent, China Power International Holding Limited.

"I can 100 percent confirm there's a binding contract in place. We've mentioned the wrong name, that's why we've had the comments you've seen," the spokesman told AFP.

Resourcehouse on Saturday said it would supply 30 million tonnes of coal a year over 20 years from the proposed "China First" mine in central Queensland, the latest in a series of major Australian resources deals with Beijing.

Executive director Phil McNamara said the "once-in-a-century project", which is expected to begin construction later this year, would include open-cut and underground mines and a 495-kilometre (308-mile) rail line.

Queensland state premier Anna Bligh said the project would create tens of thousands of jobs, with annual royalties in excess of 605 million US dollars to flow to the state government from 2014.

But the agreement was briefly cast into question when the wrongly named company denied any contact with Resourcehouse, in a statement to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

"The company ... did not contact nor negotiate with Resourcehouse Ltd about any agreement and the company did not sign any documents, whether legally binding or not, with Resourcehouse Ltd," the statement said.

The Resourcehouse spokesman said chairman Clive Palmer confirmed the deal with China Power International Holding Limited on Tuesday at a lunch in Beijing.

"That's the confusion -- we have said the wrong name," he said. "It's a binding contract and Clive Palmer said that he met with them and there's no issue."

Bligh told reporters she had personally sighted the signed agreements and added that the contract price was something that "would be negotiated probably on a triennial basis throughout the 20-year life of the supply contract".

"It is, as I understand it and I'm advised, a legally binding agreement that will be underpinned by price contracts," Bligh said.

"I have satisfied myself, to the extent that is possible with a private company, that they have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that they have a legally binding agreement."

The Australian newspaper said Resourcehouse also mistakenly sent a wrongly headed letter announcing the deal to a government minister, who received the version intended for China.

"We had to write a letter to one of the federal ministers and she got the wrong letterhead, and when she looked down and got 'China First, Putting China First', she wasn't too happy," Palmer was quoted as saying.

Metallurgical Corp of China (MCC) has been awarded the eight-billion-US-dollar thermal coal mine's engineering and construction management contract, while Export-Import Bank of China is financing a 5.6-billion-US-dollar loan.

However Palmer, Australia's fifth-richest man, stresses that the project is wholly Australian-owned.

The deal underscores a revival in trade ties between Australia and China, its third-biggest trading partner, which soured after the arrest of a Rio Tinto mining executive in Shanghai last July.

Australia, China's largest source of coal and iron ore imports, is predicted to be on the verge of a new and lengthy commodities boom based on soaring Asian demand.

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