Reports circled today that the iron ore producer had laid off 100 staff at the operation as it continued to operate in an environment dominated by a strong Australian dollar and falling commodity prices.

A BHP spokesman told MiningNews.net the decision was not related to the expansion of the mine, but the result of its ongoing focus to reduce overheads.

“Olympic Dam continues to focus on reducing overheads, operating costs and non-essential expenditures to ensure it remains competitive in the current environment of sustained lower commodity prices and a strong Australian dollar,” BHP said.

“While our strategies are focused on reducing our goods and services spend first, a reduction in functional and operational roles, impacting BHP Billiton employees and contractors, is necessary at this time.”

While it is unclear how many jobs have been made redundant, employees and contractors have been impacted across the administration, human resources and finance side of its business.

In December, BHP effectively scrapped its uranium division after it moved the Olympic Dam operation to the care of the base metals division.

The company said the Olympic Dam move would consolidate the management of the next phase of studies for the open pit expansion, align with its cost control strategy and position Olympic Dam to support its long-term copper strategy.



Olympic Dam is Australia’s largest underground mine, employing more than 3500 workers.

BHP has until 2016 to decide whether or not to forge ahead with the $A28 billion expansion of the copper and uranium operation, which has the potential to create one of the largest uranium mines, exporting 19,000 tonnes of uranium.

Shares in BHP gained 0.8% to $37.48.