BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP), the world’s biggest mining company, expects “long-term” price declines for its commodities as slower economic expansion in China weighs on demand, Chief Executive Officer Marius Kloppers said.
“We go through a pretty rigorous process to pick those long-term prices,” Kloppers told the Inside Business program on the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “They are, by and large, lower. Some products are going to more attractive than others.”
Marius Kloppers, chief executive
officer of BHP Billiton Ltd., poses for a photograph during a media
event in London, U.K., on Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2012.. Photographer: Simon
Dawson/Bloomberg
Australia’s economy has been bolstered in recent years by the biggest resources bonanza since a gold rush in the 1850s on Chinese-led demand for iron ore, coal and natural gas. Mining investment will peak within two years, Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Glenn Stevens said Aug. 24 in semiannual testimony at parliament in Canberra, a day after Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said the boom was over.
BHP, which this month wrote down the value of Western Australia nickel operations and U.S. shale gas assets by $3.3 billion, is now only exploring for oil, gas and copper, Kloppers said on the program.
Along with coal and iron ore, those five products are the primary profit drivers at BHP, he said. Potash, a form of potassium used to strengthen roots and help plants resist drought, may join that group as BHP develops its Canadian projects, he said.
Falling Stock
Shares of BHP have fallen 3.9 percent this year, trailing the 7.2 percent gain by Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index.Prices will decline in the long term, “across the product suite,” Kloppers said. “That is what we have assumed in our planning processes for the last couple of years and we see no reason to change that.”
As China’s economic growth slows, demand for BHP’s products will rise at a slower pace, Kloppers said.
China, the world’s second-largest economy, expanded 7.6 percent in the second quarter, the slowest pace in three years. Brazil’s Vale SA, the biggest iron-ore producer, said this month that China’s “golden years” are gone.
‘Attractive Opportunities’
Still, Kloppers said there are “attractive opportunities” for BHP and the Australian company plans to increase capital expenditure this year compared with last year.BHP should be able to sell its commodities in greater quantities even as prices fall, he said.
Volumes across the group should increase about 10 percent in each of the next two years, he told the program. BHP plans to expand the capacity of its Queensland coal business 50 percent in the next two years and the output of the Escondida copper mine, the world’s largest, by the same amount, he said.
BHP quit titanium minerals in February after agreeing to sell its stake in Richards Bay Minerals to Rio Tinto Group. Kloppers said in February that BHP was “inching closer” to a similar decision on the diamond industry.
“We will only exit if we get value for the assets,” he said on the Inside Business program. “What we’ve done up until now is just to say, ‘We will not spend new capital on those projects and that is pretty much the case for aluminum. It is also the case for nickel.”
Reymount Investment Products & Services:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.