[miningmx.com] — BHP BILLITON posted a 24% rise in quarterly iron ore production on Wednesday as it boosted sales to Asian steel mills, but the world’s biggest mining company said copper output from its Escondida mine in Chile was declining.
Iron ore production for the September quarter largely met market expectations and put BHP on a record annual run rate of 173 million tonnes, though prices for the steel-making commodity have slumped in recent weeks as Chinese demand cools.
“Western Australia iron ore continued to benefit from the dual tracking of the company’s rail infrastructure, increasing overall system capability,” the company said.
Iron ore output in the quarter totalled 39.57 million tonnes, up 24% from a year earlier and up from 35.53 million in the June quarter. Some analysts had been expecting shipments of around 43 million in the September quarter.
But copper production fell 24% in the quarter from a year earlier, short of expectations and largely due to problems at BHP’s 57.5% owned Escondia mine in Chile.
These problems will continue to affect operations for the remainder of the 2012 financial year, the company said.
A two-week strike at Escondida, which extracts 7% of the world’s copper and is 57.5% owned by BHP, led to a July 27 declaration of force majeure that was not lifted until Sept 2.
The force majeure applied to sales of copper concentrate, which is the crushed, unrefined mineral. Concentrate represents about 72% of Escondida’s annual output.
“Escondida production is now expected to be marginally lower in the 2012 financial year with volumes weighted to the second half,” the company said.
BHP also said production of steel-making coal from its Australian collieries had yet to recover from widespread floods that swept the area almost a year ago.
