BHP Profit Results FY 2012, Expansion Projects Deferred

Australian mining giant, BHP Billiton (ASX:BHP) have released their full year profit results to the ASX stockmarket. As previously reported, there were not many surprises in the final report release.

• BHP abandons plans for US$30 billion expansion plan for their Olympic Dam copper/uranium project
• Full year net profit fell to US$15.42 billion. (AUD$14.77 billion)
• Revenue up to US$72.23 billion (+0.7 percent). (AUD$69.18 billion)
• Realise impairment and other charges of US$346 million before tax (US$242 million after tax) in relation to Olympic Dam project
• Underlying EBIT down to $27.2 billion (falling 14.8 percent).
• BHP chief executive Marius Kloppers blamed low commodity prices and soaring operating costs
• BHP CEO Kloppers said: "In a regime of falling prices, costs cannot continue to go up forever and it is very important to bend the trend. What you have is you've got a very high Australian dollar exchange rate and very high capital costs at this moment in time. If you build something while those conditions are in place, you effectively lock in the economics of the project in an unfavourable way because the capex (capital expenditure) is all spent during that unfavourable way."
• The company has declared a final dividend of 54.61 cents per share, fully franked, with an ex-dividend date of 3/9/2012.
• BHP stock closed Wednesday trade 11 cents lower on the ASX stockmarket at $33.16.