By Melanie Burton and Sameer Manekar
MELBOURNE (Reuters) -BHP sees signs of economic recovery in China and central bank rate cuts reviving demand for steel and copper but flagged risks to global growth from potential trade tensions, as it logged its lowest first-half profit in six years.
After scrapping a $49 billion bid to acquire Anglo American, which last year rebuffed its bigger rival’s effort to snare control of prized copper assets in Latin America, BHP CEO Mike Henry said the company was not looking at acquisitions now.
“Our current focus is 100% on organic growth options,” Henry told reporters.
The world’s largest listed miner on Tuesday reported an underlying attributable profit of $5.08 billion for the six months ending December 2024, down 23% from a year earlier but slightly ahead of the Visible Alpha consensus estimate of $5.01 billion. Its shares eased 0.3 % in line with other major miners.
It declared an interim dividend of 50 cents per share, its lowest since 2017, down from 72 cents per share a year earlier but in line with consensus at the bottom end of the miner’s payout policy.
“The in-line results and dividend exceeded our expectations,” said Macquarie analyst Rob Stein in a note.
For the first-half, underlying operating earnings from iron ore, its biggest profit-generating commodity, declined 26% to $7.2 billion as the average realised price fell to $81.11 per wet metric ton from $103.7 a year ago.
Following a string of cyclones that have hit Australia’s west coast and snarled iron ore shipments, BHP warned its full-year iron ore output from Western Australia would no longer be in the upper half of the expected range of between 282 million and 294 million metric tons.
However, the miner pointed to global monetary easing potentially reviving demand prospects for its two main products, steel ingredient iron ore, and copper, which has grown to account for nearly half of its profits.
“Central banks’ ongoing rate cuts are expected to translate into a recovery for steel and copper demand across the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) in the near term,” it said.
“However, potential trade tensions present a risk to the recovery in developed economies and across the globe.”
Henry said BHP’s exposure to U.S. tariffs was muted given the market accounts for only 3% of its revenue.
“To the extent there is a constraint on Canadian potash into the U.S. … then we would expect to see the global market reorder,” he said on an earnings call. BHP expects to start shipping the fertiliser at the end of next year.
