BHP Billiton FY15 Iron Ore Output Exceeds Guidance; But Sees Additional Charges

(RTTNews) - Mining giant BHP Billiton Ltd. (BHP, BHP.AX, BBL, BLT.L) on Tuesday reported a 6 percent increase in iron ore production for the fourth quarter, while production of metallurgical coal grew 13 percent.

Total iron ore production for fiscal year 2015 increased 14 percent and exceeded the company's own outlook. Further, the company said it expects underlying attributable profit for the 2015 June half year to include additional charges of up to $650 million, tied mainly to writedowns and redundancies in its copper business.

Issuing its production report for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2015, BHP Billiton said it recorded a 6 percent increase in production of iron ore from the year-ago period to 60.09 million tons. Production also rose 2 percent from the prior quarter.

The world's largest mining company also reported a 14 percent increase in fiscal 2015 iron ore production from last year to a record 232.5 million tons. Iron ore is the main raw material used for steel production. This compares to the company's outlook for production of 230 million tons.

For fiscal 2016, the company forecasts iron ore production to increase by 6 percent to 247 million tons.

BHP's fourth-quarter production of metallurgical coal, which is also used in steel making, grew 13 percent from last year to 11.39 million tons, and also increased 18 percent from the third quarter. Production for the full year increased 13 percent to a record 42.6 million tons.

Energy coal production grew 2 percent from the prior-year quarter to 10.60 million tons. Meanwhile, it decreased 5 percent for the full year to 41.01 million tons.

The miner said its total petroleum production for the fourth quarter decreased 2 percent from the yea-ago period to 63.2 million barrels of oil equivalent or boe. Total petroleum production grew 4 percent in the year to a record 255.7 MMboe.

The company's copper production for the quarter decreased 7 percent to 435,000 tons, and production of Nickel declined 7 percent to 19,300 tons from last year.

For fiscal 2015, BHP's petroleum exploration expenditure was $567 million, of which $481 million was expensed. The company spent $267 million on minerals exploration, of which $199 million was expensed.

BHP Billiton also said it expects underlying attributable profit in the June 2015 half year to include additional charges in a range of about $350 million to $650 million, tied mainly to writedowns and redundancies in its copper business.

On July 15, the company said that it expects to recognise an impairment charge of about $2 billion post-tax against the carrying value of its onshore US assets.

Following the spin- off of South32, BHP Billiton also said it expects to recognise a net loss on the demerger of about $2.1 billion post-tax as an exceptional item in the June 2015 half year.

For fiscal 2016, BHP Billiton forecast a 7 percent decline in petroleum production to 237 MMboe, 12 percent decrease in copper output to 1.5 million tons, 6 percent decrease in metallurgical coal production to 40 million tons and 2 percent decrease in energy coal production to 40 million tons.

BHP closed Tuesday's trading at $39.68, up $0.55 or 1.41 percent on a volume of 1.95 million shares.