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COLUMN-BHP downgrades China steel forecast but keeps iron ore strategy – by Clyde Russell (Reuters U.S. – August 25, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Aug 26 (Reuters) – One of the first steps in recovering from a debilitating condition like alcoholism is admitting you have a problem. It seems BHP Billiton has finally started down this path with iron ore.

In announcing a 52-percent plunge in annual profit on Tuesday, Chief Executive Andrew Mackenzie also lowered BHP’s forecast for the peak in Chinese steel output to between 935 and 985 million tonnes by the mid-2020s.

This was down from the previously long held target of 1 to 1.1 billion tonnes that had underpinned BHP’s massive expansion of its iron ore mines, which has more than doubled output in the past five years to a total of 254 million tonnes in the 2014-15 financial year.

The scaling back of BHP’s China steel forecast leaves Sam Walsh, the chief executive of rival Rio Tinto, as one of the last holdouts for a peak above 1 billion tonnes.

Walsh said after releasing Rio’s results, which saw a 43-percent drop in underlying earnings, that his company was “holding the line” on the 1 billion tonne by 2030 forecast, saying this represented growth of just 1 percent per year over the period.

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Can You Read China? Top Mining CEOs Disagree on Biggest Customer – by Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – August 25, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

What on earth is going on in China?

Two of the biggest mining companies feeding the country’s appetite for raw materials can’t even agree on whether there’s an answer to the question.

Andrew Mackenzie, head of BHP Billiton Ltd., is bullish on his ability to comprehend a country that consumes more commodities than any other — and whose economic woes have shaken markets around the globe this week.

“We don’t find China impossible to read,” Mackenzie, chief executive officer of the world’s biggest mining company, said Tuesday.“We’ve been at this game for decades.”

His certainty conflicts with billionaire mining rival Ivan Glasenberg’s admission last week that he couldn’t read the world’s second-largest economy right now and neither could anyone else.

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BHP Billiton posts worst profit in 11 years, maintains dividend – by Peter Ker (Sydney Morning Herald – August 25, 2015)

http://www.smh.com.au/business/

Analysts say BHP Billiton is offering shareholders “the dividend yield of a lifetime”, after it grew dividends by 2 per cent during a year that its profits slumped by 52 per cent to their lowest level in more than a decade.

The $US0.62 dividend announced by BHP on Tuesday confirmed the miner’s pledge to maintain a “progressive” dividend despite the deliberate shrinking of the company through the spin-out of South32 earlier this year.

The pay out came as the resources giant posted a $US6.4 billion underlying profit, which was well below the $US7.5 billion that analysts had expected.

BHP has not posted a profit this low since the earliest days of the mining boom in 2004.  The statutory profit was 86 per cent lower at $US1.9 billion. But despite the result, BHP’s London shares have surged by more than 8 per cent in early trading.

The company’s earnings were always going to struggle amid a broader collapse in commodity prices during the 2015 financial year.

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Iron Billionaire Mauls ‘Market Vandalism’ as Rio Tinto Hits Back – by Jasmine Ng and David Stringer (Bloomberg News – August 23, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Iron ore prices collapsed this year as the biggest miners committed market vandalism by overproducing, according to Fortescue Metals Group Ltd. Rio Tinto Group fired a salvo in response, saying the analysis is overblown.

“The logic that you keep expanding just because you can squeeze an extra ton out of your machines, applies well to mining juniors,” Chairman Andrew Forrest said in a commentary on Monday as the company reported a slump in full-year profit. But it “is market vandalism and self-harm when industry leaders do it,” he said, without identifying any companies.

Iron ore sank last month to the lowest in at least six years as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton Ltd. in Australia and Brazil’s Vale SA boosted cheap supply, betting higher volumes would offset lower prices. Fortescue will hold volumes steady this year, although it was ready to expand if demand revived, according to Forrest. Rio said Monday that Forrest’s remarks about the market were inconsistent, while BHP declined to comment.

“Iron ore is inelastic in demand,” Forrest said using a term that suggests consumption doesn’t change with price.
Once users’ demand has been met, “any further product offering will see the price collapse. We have seen that this year.”

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Nickel woes push South32 shares to fresh low point – by Michael Roddan (The Australian – August 18, 2015)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

BHP Billiton spin-off South32, which launched on the sharemarket with high hopes in May, tumbled to a new low on the ASX today amid a global commodity crunch, with shares down more than 30 per cent from their high point shortly after listing.

The diversified miner (S32), which holds BHP’s former non-core coal and base metal assets, has been hit by weak commodity prices and soft global demand amid a rising US dollar.

The shares, which hit a peak of $2.37 after listing, fell as much as 3.4 per cent to $1.56 in today’s trade, taking the total decline from the posting-listing high to 34 per cent.

South32, a miner of metals such as nickel, coal, silver, aluminium and zinc, has seen commodity prices crash during its short life. Bloomberg’s commodities index slumped to its lowest point in 13 years recently.

The prices of nickel, copper and zinc are all hitting their lowest points since 2009, as concerns about slowing economic growth in China are pushing industrial metals down.

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NEWS RELEASE BHP BILLITON CELEBRATING 130 YEARS OF HISTORY (August 13, 2015)

BHP Billiton is today celebrating the 130 year anniversary of the incorporation of BHP and its significant contribution to the Australian economy and society for more than a century.

BHP was formed in 1885 after a rich silver and lead deposit was discovered by Charles Rasp on a rocky outcrop known as the ‘Broken Hill’ in western New South Wales two years earlier.

BHP Billiton CEO, Andrew Mackenzie, said the milestone was an opportunity to reflect on the Company’s long history and events that shaped its culture.

“It’s not often that we get the opportunity to stop and take a look at where we have come from, but history has a lot to teach us,” he said.

“From humble beginnings mining silver and lead at Broken Hill and tin at Billiton (Belitung) island, Indonesia, in the mid-1800s, it has been a long journey to becoming the world’s largest diversified resources company.

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Glencore and BHP Fall to Lowest in Years as Miners Shunned – by Jesse Riseborough and Thomas Biesheuvel (Bloomberg News – August 12, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Glencore Plc and BHP Billiton Ltd. shares fell to the lowest in at least four years as investors continued to shun mining companies on concern Chinese demand for commodities is waning.

The FTSE 350 Mining Index of 14 producers fell for a second day to the lowest since March 2009. BHP, the world’s biggest miner, dropped to a six-year low while Glencore slid as much as 7 percent to the lowest since it started trading in 2011.

Commodity prices are near a 13-year low and this year’s 18 percent plunge in the Bloomberg World Mining Index wiped almost $200 billion off the value of the biggest producers. China, the biggest raw-materials user, this week devalued its currency in a move that supports exports and makes imports more expensive. That further spooked investors already concerned that consumption is falling as the country’s economy expands at the slowest pace in a quarter of a century.

“This is coming at a time when the market is capitulating anyway,” Marc Elliott, an analyst at Investec Plc in London, said by phone, referring to the weakening yuan.

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Brazil the winner from the Andrew Forrest way – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – August 10, 2015)

http://www.afr.com/

The only way Australia and its miners would benefit from any form of co-ordinated iron ore production constraint would be if Brazil could be convinced to add its name to our cartel.

But even with Brazil’s unlikely and illegal embrace of a cartel, the net gains for Australia would be marginal and fleeting, says the most authoritative and technical analysis conducted yet on Andrew Forrest’s contention that Australia’s economy is being abused by its biggest iron ore miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.

Forrest and his company Fortescue continue to rail about planned expansion, under which both their Pilbara competitors will add about 20 million tonnes to production over coming years, while Gina Rinehart introduces another 55 million tonnes to an already bloated global system.

Having initially taken the Forrest bait on the idea of some sort of market review, governments state and federal promptly backed off after some unusually blunt criticism from the likes of BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie.

But that didn’t settle things for good old Brian Fisher. Fisher is the economist who ran the Australian Bureau of Agriculture and Resource Economics during its pomp as government’s commodity industry number cruncher, and now directs his own firm, called BAEconomics.

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Nickel West just might be the biggest loser – by Barry FitzGerald (The Australian – August 6, 2015)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

Mylanta and Panadol were in short supply as the 1700 mining types pushed through the final day of the Diggers & Dealers bash. “Go hard or go home” seemed to be mantra.

But while sympathy was in short supply for those delegates who had badly timed their runs, there was much on offer for our biggest miner, BHP Billiton.

Not that BHP was out and about. While it operates the Kalgoorlie nickel concentrator and smelter, BHP operatives are only seen in the shadows, if at all.

Anyway, BHP’s Nickel West division — the one that wasn’t good enough to shove in to the South32 spin-off — is doing it tough, real tough, as a result of the crash in nickel prices.

Talk around the conference is that it would be no surprise if Nickel West was losing tens of millions of dollars a month — that’s right, a month — at current prices for the stainless steel ingredient of $US4.86 a pound.

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BHP to open new coal mine in Borneo amid concern for orangutans – by Peter Ker (Sydney Morning Herald – July 22, 2015)

http://www.smh.com.au/

If you thought Shenhua and Adani had raised hackles with their plans to develop new coal mines in controversial parts of Australia, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

In a move likely to enrage environmental campaigners, BHP Billiton quietly flagged on Wednesday that it would soon start production of coal at the Haju mine in Indonesian Borneo. Haju will initially produce about 1 million tonnes of coal a year, which is pretty small compared to the coal mines BHP already operates in Queensland.

But Haju could be the start of a much larger coal project for BHP in Indonesian Borneo known as IndoMet, which is believed to have potential to produce around 5 million tonnes of coal per year, if it is ever fully developed.

That remains a big “if” given the depressed prices for coal, but Wednesday’s confirmation that first production will begin within 12 months will be a blow to environmental campaigners who have lobbied BHP and its joint venture partner Adaro Energy for the best part of a decade to abandon the project.

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BHP Billiton’s coal king Mike Henry digs in for a challenging time – by Matt Chambers (The Australian – July 18, 2015)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/

After 25 years working in and around the mining industry, Mike Henry has been given his first major role managing operations. And it’s a beauty.

In January, the former BHP Billiton marketing boss was made coal president, heading the mining giant’s lowest-margin business at a time when forecasts and prices for the commodity seem to be getting relentlessly worse and in which chief executive Andrew Mackenzie says he will not allocate capital.

But the 48-year-old Henry, who is regarded by company-watchers as a potential internal candidate to succeed Mackenzie, sees plenty of positives.

“I like a challenge and there’s lots to like here,” Henry tells The Weekend Australian from BHP’s coal headquarters on the Brisbane River. “In the first half (of 2014-15), we generated a 2 per cent return on capital and 2 per cent of BHP’s earnings before interest and tax,” he says, explaining coal’s current limited prospects for investment funds.

“My job is to take what we have and make sure that we’re getting the most we possibly can out of it.

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Vale’s designs on China add to Rio, BHP drive for more iron ore – by James Regan (Reuters U.S. – July 15, 2015)

http://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY – As Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton ship more iron ore than ever to China, the Australia mining giants face a fightback from Brazil’s Vale for market share that threatens to drive already weak prices even lower.

Rio Tinto and BHP, which will release quarterly production data this week and next, have been racing to keep up exports to boost profits while lower prices eat into margins.

They now face stiffer competition from Vale, which is also working its mines harder, after the world’s biggest producer won approval for its giant Valemax ships to unload in China, cutting down on freight costs.

With a capacity of 400,000 tonnes each, the 34 Valemaxes are the world’s biggest bulk carriers and twice the size of vessels used by Rio and BHP, but a ban on entering Chinese ports had severely curbed the cost efficiencies of the larger ships.

“BHP and Rio have been looking to raise volumes in this environment to maximize every tonne,” said Morgans Financial analyst James Wilson.

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Iron ore miners unprepared for challenges, warns BHP – by Paul Garvey (The Australian – July 14, 2015)

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/

Australia’s iron ore miners are unprepared for the massive exploration challenges ahead of them, BHP Billiton’s head of iron ore exploration has warned.

Speaking at the AusIMM iron ore conference in Perth on yesterday, BHP’s Joe Knight said current exploration methods would be unable to discover and define the quantity of new ore bodies needed to sustain the Pilbara’s soaring iron ore output.

The Pilbara is home to three of the world’s four largest iron ore miners — BHP, Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals Group — and exports almost 800 million tonnes of ore a year.

That figure is set to grow to about 965 million tonnes a year by 2017, Mr Knight said, based on the current publicly announced plans of the region’s miners and explorers.

At that rate, Mr Knight said, companies would struggle to replace their mined resources unless they evolved their approach to exploration, given the forecast annual production was the equivalent of more than three so-called “tier one” iron ore deposits.

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BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto ready for iron ore’s ‘new normal’ – by Amanda Saunders and Tess Ingram (Australian Finacial Review – July 9, 2015)

http://www.afr.com/

Australia’s big two iron ore miners, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, believe the commodity will continue to be a “wealth generation machine for Australia” and expect volatility to recede, despite the heavy price falls in recent days.

Iron ore may be headed for $US40 a tonne after crashing through $US45 on Wednesday night, dropping more than 10 per cent in a single day. But Rio and BHP say they are well prepared for the possible new normal in prices.

Rio Tinto iron ore boss Andrew Harding told The Australian Financial Review that the iron ore price “is moving around its long-term average after coming off an unprecedented high that was never sustainable”. “We are seeing a pattern play out now that is entirely consistent with the history of all internationally traded commodities,” he said.

OPTIMISM LONG-TERM

The miner has cut costs, and prepared its iron ore division “to manage these fluctuations over the long term”. He maintains that the “long-term picture for iron ore remains sound”, and the commodity will “continue to be a wealth generation machine for Australia”.

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Iron Ore’s Bear Market May Deepen as Clarksons Forecasts $40 – by Jasmine NgDavid Stringer(Bloomberg News – July 7, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Iron ore will probably extend declines after falling back into a bear market on Monday as low-cost supplies from Australia and Brazil are set to expand further this half while demand stumbles in China.

Prices may drop toward $40 a metric ton, according to Clarksons Platou Securities Inc. A deepening slowdown in China’s steel industry and higher iron ore exports from the largest miners are weighing on prices, said Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Iron ore’s return to a bear market highlights that the same factors of surging supply and stalling demand growth, which dragged prices to a decade-low early April, remain at the forefront. Recent losses followed figures showing inventories in China rebounded, while exports in June from Australia’s Port Hedland were at a record. The Minerals Council of Australia on Tuesday defended local miners’ policy of adding output, saying cuts would be a failed strategy that would aid competitors.

“Momentum is clearly negative and that is going to be hard to reverse in the immediate short term,” Paul Gait, an analyst at Bernstein in London, said in an e-mailed response to questions. “The revealed preference of the miners is for volume over value, for tons ahead of price.”

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