Mining major BHP on Tuesday reported that its bottom-line has been hit with some $600-million following a train derailment at its Western Australian iron-ore operations in November, and other ‘unplanned’ production outages at its Olympic Dam and Spence operations.
BHP told shareholders that productivity in the half year ended December had been impacted by lower-than-expected volumes at the Olympic Dam operation, in Western Australia, owing to unplanned acid plant outages in August, which resulted in volumes declining by 45 000 t, as well as its Spence copper mine, in Chile, where a fire at the electro-winning plant in September saw production decline by 25 000 t.