SYDNEY, April 18 (Reuters) – BHP Billiton
on Wednesday posted sharp drops in iron ore and coal production
over the March quarter due to bad weather and labour unrest.
Iron ore output fell 8 percent, while metallurgical coal
production was down 14 percent against the previous quarter, the
world’s biggest miner said in its latest quarterly operations
report.
BHP said production from its Queensland collieries supplying
steel-making coal was still constrained as a result of an
ongoing campaign of rolling work stoppages and other industrial
action by roughly a third of its workforce coupled with the
impact of heavy rains.
“The extent to which industrial action will continue to
affect production, sales and unit costs is difficult to predict,
however with inventories now severely depleted, the impact on
future quarters may be significant,” BHP said.
Iron ore output totaled 37.9 million tonnes, down 8 percent
from the December quarter though 14 percent higher versus the
same period a year ago.
Copper production rose 3 percent from a year ago to 281,400
tonnes in the March quarter, which included 87,700 tonnes of
mined copper and 47,400 tonnes of copper cathode from the
Escondida mine in Chile, the world’s largest copper mine, BHP
Billiton said.
BHP Billiton is the world’s third-biggest iron ore miner
behind Brazil’s Vale and Rio Tinto, and the
second-largest copper producer after Chile’s Codelco.
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