BHP Group Limited (BHP) Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Hello, and thank you for joining us to hear about BHP's results for the first half of the 2024 financial year. I'm joined by our Chief Financial Officer, David Lamont. We're pleased to present a set of results today that underscore the strength of our strategy and the quality of our execution. I must start, however, by acknowledging the loss of Luke O'Brien, a co-worker from one of our contracting partners who was fatally injured while on the job at Siraji in January of this year. The safety and well-being of our people is the priority, and it simply isn't acceptable if anyone is being seriously injured or worse while at work. And we are redoubling our ongoing efforts to reinforce our culture and controls when it comes to safety. Operationally, in the December 2023 half, we delivered a 7% increase in copper production. We maintained strong momentum at Western Australian Iron Ore and we remain on track to meet our original full-year production and unit cost guidance across all, bar one, of our assets. We progressed important portfolio changes in line with our strategy, including successfully integrating our new copper asset in South Australia, sanctioning additional investment in potash at Janssen in Canada, and further focusing our metallurgical coal portfolio on higher quality premium coals through the divestment of Blackwater and Donya. The period also had its challenges, with exceptional items relating to Western Australian nickel and Simarco offsetting an otherwise solid operational performance and overall healthy commodity prices. Our strong underlying results enabled us to determine an interim dividend of 72 US cents per share. In addition to delivering strong shareholder value, we've also advanced our social value initiatives. We've taken further steps towards...