- BHP says it produced 58M metric tons of iron ore during its December quarter (Q2), down 6% Y/Y, and forecasts a $600M negative impact to H1 production due unplanned outages across its operations in Australia and Chile.
- But BHP says H1 production was "broadly in line with the prior period despite planned maintenance and outages," and full-year production guidance remains unchanged for iron ore, petroleum, metallurgical coal and energy coal.
- In November, BHP was forced to deliberately derail a runaway train loaded with iron ore in Western Australia's Pilbara region, which severed the crucial rail link between its mines and shipping hub in Port Hedland; BHP temporarily suspended all of its Pilbara rail operations to investigate the incident and recover the rogue train.
- Productivity also was hurt by an unplanned acid plant outage at its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia in August and a plant fire at its Spence mine in Chile in September.
- Meanwhile, BHP raises its full-year copper production forecast to 1.645M-1.74M tons after deciding not to sell its Cerro Colorado mine in Chile; copper output rose 2% Y/Y during Q2 to 416K tons.
- Also, Q2 production of petroleum products fell 8% Y/Y to 30M boe.
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