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BHP Chief Executive Officer, Mike Henry:
“We have started the new financial year strongly, achieving safe and reliable operating performance. The first quarter included significant planned major maintenance in Western Australia Iron Ore (WAIO), BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA), and Olympic Dam.
Copper production was up nine per cent on the same quarter last year, with strong concentrator throughput at Escondida and record quarterly anode production at Olympic Dam. WAIO continued to perform strongly, with production up by 3% relative to the same period last year, and we managed through substantial rainfall and labour constraints in our coal assets with production only down marginally year on year. Our full year production and unit cost guidance is unchanged.
The South Flank iron ore ramp-up and the Jansen potash project are tracking well, with work ongoing to bring forward first production from Jansen Stage 1 and accelerate Jansen Stage 2.
During the quarter, BHP struck a new agreement to supply our WAIO port facilities with renewable electricity, which is expected to halve GHG emissions from the electricity used, signed an MoU with India’s Tata Steel to collaborate on lower GHG emission steelmaking and announced a partnership with Pan Pacific Copper to reduce GHG emissions from maritime transportation, as we take further action to reduce GHG emissions from our operations and support decarbonisation of our suppliers and customers.
We expect global macro-economic uncertainty in the short term to continue to affect supply chains, energy costs, labour markets and equipment and materials availability. BHP remains well positioned, with a portfolio and balance sheet to withstand external challenges and a strategy positioned to benefit from the global mega-trends of decarbonisation and electrification.”
