BHP confirms outage at Olympic Dam, posts higher underlying profit
BHP is currently experiencing an outage at its Olympic Dam operations in SA with the impact yet to be assessed, the mining giant revealed as part of its full year results announcement on Tuesday.
BHP is currently experiencing an outage at its Olympic Dam operations in SA with the impact yet to be assessed, the mining giant revealed as part of its full year results announcement on Tuesday.
The outage is at its Olympic Dam acid plant following the failure of several boiler tubes, the company said.
“Remediation and mitigation activities are underway, and underground mining operations continue as normal.”
It is understood the outage is likely to affect production for up to eight weeks, but BHP did not provide any time frames.
The outage follows the completion of a $350 million upgrade at the site, 560km north of Adelaide, and in the midst of the company marking 30 years of copper mining at Olympic Dam.
It comes just over a month after new asset president Olympic Dam Laura Tyler, a close lieutenant of BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie, took over the reins from Jacqui McGill, who resigned from the group after 18 years.
The mine site directly employs 3500 people in SA and supports thousands more jobs through its contractors and suppliers.
It is not clear if the outage will affect previously forecast copper production targets of 215,000 tonnes in 2019 and 280,000 tonnes in 2022.
BHP is spending $600 million on underground infrastructure and above-ground processing operations at the mine.
Research work is under way on using heap leach technology, which may enable BHP to expand production at the SA site to more than 450,000 tonnes a year — over the long term.
BHP on Tuesday also reported its full year profit fell 37 per cent to $US3.7 billion (A$5 billion), from $US5.9 billion because of writedowns on US shale and its Samarco iron ore unit in Brazil.
But underlying profit rose 33 per cent $US8.9 billion (A$12 billion) in line with market expectations.
BHP declared a record final dividend of US63 cents a share, bringing the full-year dividend to $US1.18 — higher than analyst expectations of $US1.16.
“We have announced a record final dividend for shareholders which reflects strong operating performance, solid prices and capital discipline,” BHP chief Andrew Mackenzie said.
“Across our dramatically simplified portfolio of tier one assets, we see this year’s strong momentum carried into the medium term as our leadership, technology and culture drive further increases in productivity, value and returns,” Mr Mackenzie said.