BHP mulls mothballing coal mines over royalty regime
Weak commodity prices focused on the profit of one of the largest miners in the world and thought to reduce BHP’s dividend and close some coal mines.
The BHP fell to $ 9 billion (A13.9 billion) with an increase of 14 percent in full year net profit, and the underlying net profit fell from 60 US cents to 74 US cents (A0.92 $) compared to the previous year.
CEO, Mike Henry, said the result reflects the flexibility of the Melbourne -based group, the leading manufacturer of iron ore, copper and coal.
“We have provided our full year guidance in our business package and obtained record iron ore and copper production in our business package,” he said.
“Our operational results supported a year of industry leader margins and strong cash flows.”
Despite record iron ore and copper production, the income fell by 4.4 billion dollars due to price weakness of coal and iron ore price, but this was partly balanced with stronger copper prices.
Weak income was converted into softer gains before interest, tax, depreciation and fire department.
These gains fell to 29 billion dollars with a decrease of 10 percent, but the underlying earnings from copper rose to USD 12.3 billion up to 45 percent of the group earnings.
In addition to regular commodity prices, the BHP’s financial report targeted Queensland’s copyright regime, introduced by the state workers’ government in 2022, and marked some of the five coal miners operated under the state’s BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA).
In the report, “With the ongoing negative effects of excessive royal rates, we will continue our current position to avoid investing in further growth in BMA,” he said.
“If low coal prices continue, the options for pause the low margin areas of our operational footprint will be taken into consideration.”
According to Mitsubishi, the alliance, which has Hay Point Coal Terminal near Mackay, employs more than 10,000 full -time equivalent employees and contractor.
BHP’s boss, iron ore prices are under the pressure of weak ore demand and steel excessive supply, and the appearance of global economic growth is mixed.
“While economies around the world continued to navigate the policy uncertainty, China and India have shown an increase in flexible economic and commodity demand in the first half of this year,” Henry said.
“There are large markets in our commodities, flexible demand and upright cost curves.
“The world will need much more steel production materials, much more copper and more potas.”
As for the shrinkage dividend, the CEO said that this was the başka far above BHP’s minimum payment rate and represented a full -year payment of $ 5.6 billion.
“This is supported by a strong balance sheet,“ This is lower than expected and trust in the long -term orbit of our business, ”Henry said.
“This year, we have contributed to the suppliers and shareholders globally by globally by globally through wages, taxes, copyrights, community contributions and payments.”
The BHP changed capital guidance to 11 billion US dollars for discovery expenditures.
In addition, Vicuna has invested $ 2.1 billion for 50 percent interest in Vicuna joint venture, which includes one of the largest copper deposit discoveries of the last 30 years.
Investors mainly received the internal report positively for BHP and increased their shares to $ 42.07 higher in the afternoon trade.
RBC Capital Markets analyst Kaan Peker said that the strong results of BHP emphasized the consistency of the business.
“The company balances its shift towards growth (ie copper) and continues to pay compelling dividends.”
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