By the late 1970s, coal was booming and shipments reached over 10 million tonnes in 1979 – almost twice capacity. Astute equipment purchases over the years, such as two new stacker-reclaimers, plus an increasingly skilled workforce kept the terminal productive and moving. The surge in shipments prompted the National Harbours Board to conceive a bold plan to quadruple the size of Roberts Bank from 20 to 80 hectares.

Work began in 1981 and the massive reclamation and infrastructure work took until early 1984. Westshore took the opportunity to double its size to 54 hectares (133 acres), adding a second deep-sea berth, a twin rotary dumper at a new location, and a third stacker-reclaimer.

Shipments surged once again to 16.5 mt in 1984, as a world hungry for steelmaking and energy coal looked to Canada and Westshore as a safe, reliable, year-round source of high-quality coal.

To show it could handle the largest dry bulk carriers in service, in May 1987 Westshore set a world record for a single coal shipment when 239,084 tonnes were loaded on board the Hyundai Giant. In 1989 Westshore broke the 20 million tonnes shipped mark for the first time and set a record of 23.5 mt in 1997. A new single rotary dumper was added alongside the existing twin dumpers in 1991 and the original coal dumper in the centre of the site was removed allowing throughput capacity to jump to 24 million tonnes per year.