In the wake of falling copper prices jobs will be cut at Olympic Dam as BHP looks to reduce costs.
it comes as the metal dropped to a five year low earlier this month, after dropping to $5548 per tonne, the lowest point since July 2009.
On the back of this BHP Olympic Dam asset president Darryl Cuzzubbo highlighted the need for the miner to look to reduce costs at the site, according to The Monitor.
“As part of this exercise, we are currently reviewing our headcount to determine how to meet the challenge of rebalancing our workforce to enable us to achieve the increased development and production activities in the mine,” Cuzzubbo said.
A BHP spokesperson confirmed the job cuts for Australian Mining, stating: "Over the past few months, Olympic Dam has been focused on identifying opportunities to safely reduce costs in order to build a strong, viable business."
"As a result, a number of positions will be made redundant, however the impact of these redundancies will be minimised through some redeployments opportunities. We are unable to determine a net figure for workforce redundancies until the redeployment process is completed later this year.
BHP expects to finish its review, and clarify the number of jobs to be cut, next month.
However, despite the current gloom surrounding the copper market forecasts are positive for the metal this year.
A proposed US$68.7 billion investment in China’s power transmission lines, lower scrap supply and possible mine supply disruptions could drive global copper growth by 4.1 per cent this year, Credit Suisse metals analysts say.
The analysts anticipate that copper prices will be capped at around $6,600 per tonne and $3 per pound.
