{"id":11756,"date":"2012-06-22T11:40:15","date_gmt":"2012-06-22T09:40:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/update-1-bhp-says-to-invest-845-mln-in-australian-coal\/"},"modified":"2012-06-22T11:40:15","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T09:40:15","slug":"update-1-bhp-says-to-invest-845-mln-in-australian-coal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/update-1-bhp-says-to-invest-845-mln-in-australian-coal\/","title":{"rendered":"UPDATE 1-BHP says to invest $845 mln in Australian coal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Capital to sustain existing operation<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Spend unexpected, but small relative to mega projects &#8211;<br \/>\nUBS<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">MELBOURNE, June 22<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; BHP Billiton<br \/>\n, the world&#8217;s largest miner, has approved an $845 million<br \/>\ninvestment to keep up production at its Illawarra coal<br \/>\noperations in Australia&#8217;s New South Wales state, a move that<br \/>\nanalysts said was unexpected.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>BHP said on Friday it was going to dig a new area at its<br \/>\nAppin Mine which would have production capacity of 3.5 million<br \/>\ntonnes per year of coal used in steel mills from 2016, replacing<br \/>\nproduction at the West Cliff Mine.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>That would sustain total production from its Illawarra,<br \/>\nnorth of Sydney, operations at 9 million tonnes a year.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>BHP approved the spending at a time when major miners have<br \/>\nbeen under pressure from shareholders, jittery about slowing<br \/>\nglobal growth, falling commodity prices and rising costs, to<br \/>\nhand back capital rather than splashing out on projects.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>An analyst said he had not anticipated the Illawarra<br \/>\nspending over the next two to three years, but said it was small<br \/>\nrelative to the mega projects that BHP has signalled it may<br \/>\ndelay, including the Outer Harbour iron ore expansion and the<br \/>\nOlympic Dam copper and uranium expansion.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Eight hundred million dollars is not what we have in our<br \/>\nnumbers to be spent&#8230;But when spaced over two to three years,<br \/>\nit&#8217;s very different by an order of magnitude from the $2-3<br \/>\nbillion-plus a year they would need to spend on those projects,&#8221;<br \/>\nsaid UBS analyst Glyn Lawcock.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>BHP has indicated over the past month it is unlikely to<br \/>\napprove any major new capital spending in its $80 billion<br \/>\npipeline over the next 12 to 18 months, as it has been caught in<br \/>\na squeeze between falling prices and rising costs.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Capital to sustain existing operation * Spend unexpected, but small relative to mega projects &#8211; UBS MELBOURNE, June 22 (Reuters) &#8211; BHP Billiton , the world&#8217;s largest miner, has approved an $845 million investment to keep up production at its Illawarra coal operations in Australia&#8217;s New South Wales state, a move that analysts said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11756","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}