New BHP Australia operations boss not expecting mass job losses

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Mining giant BHP Billiton’s new president of operations for its Minerals Australia division, Mike Henry, has been cautious to predict the fallout from the company’s recent employee restructuring.

BHP on Tuesday axed 290 jobs from its Mt Arthur coal mine, in New South Wales, as the global prices for thermal coal continued to decline.

BHP New South Wales energy coal asset president James Palmer reportedly said that the staff changes were essential to enable the Mt Arthur mine to be commercially viable.

“Despite extensive work over the past two years to reset our production costs and safely improve the mine's productivity, Mt Arthur coal [mine] must continue to significantly improve performance to be a globally competitive operation," he told the ABC.

Henry told journalists on the sidelines of the Global Iron Ore and Steel Forecast, held in Perth, that the decision to reduce staff numbers at the Mt Arthur mine was not representative of what would happen at group level, following the restructure of the company’s operations.

“That is a very specific set of circumstances,” Henry said.

“Like other businesses in the region, over the past few years there has been a strong move to lift productivity, and that has resulted in some job losses. As we continue to improve productivity over time that could either be taken as an increase in volume or reduction in costs, and sometimes that will have very sad results for individuals. But there is nothing in the changes we made last week that are targeting [staff reductions] in the operations.”

In late February, BHP announced structural changes that saw its mineral production operations split into two regional units, Minerals Australia and Minerals America.

The company’s remaining oil and gas exploration and production operations were housed within a global petroleum unit.

Henry said that for the Minerals Australia division, the restructure resulted in two leadership teams being honed down to one, which had an impact on a small number of employees.