BHP plans to cut around 30 per cent of its full time equivalent employees at Olympic Dam by FY17, BHP says.
According to a BHP spokesperson, the workforce reduction would consist mostly of contractors and other FTE employees, with the cutbacks relative to FY15.
This latest announcement follows the miner’s plan to cut 380 positions from the operation, and marks the fifth planned round of reductions at the mine.
It comes as the mine attempts to increase tonnages from the operation, forecasting 200,000 tonnes of production from FY16 to FY19, rising to around 220,000 tones of production capacity by FY19, while at the same time driving down costs.
“We have the industry’s largest copper resource and our business will gain momentum over the next two years with lower costs and higher production across our major assets as we safely improve productivity,” BHP’s president for copper, Daniel Malchuk, said.
“Olympic Dam unit costs are expected to fall 48 per cent by the end of the 2017 financial year to US$1 per pound,” Malchuk said, “repositioning the asset at the low end of the cost curve.”