BHP BILLITON (BHP): Interim result - Strong performance on cost reductions help beat consensus net profit estimates

BHP BILLITON (BHP): Interim result - Strong performance on cost reductions help beat consensus net profit estimates. Average realised prices major commodities: Oil down 17% to US$85/bbl, Iron Ore down 38% to US$70/wmt, Hard coking coal down 23% to US$110/t, weak coking coal down 21% to US$92/t, LNG down 6% to US$13.76/mscf, copper down 11% to US$2.98/lb. Capital and exploration expenditure reduced by 23% to US$6.4 billion in the half year. Continued improvement in the Group's capital productivity is expected to support a reduction in forecast capital and exploration expenditure for the 2015 financial year to US$12.6 billion, 15% below original guidance. Net operating cash flow down 12.1% to US$10423m. Outlook: Total iron ore production guidance for the 2015 financial year remains unchanged at 225 Mt. We remain on track to deliver Group production growth of 16 per cent over the two years to the end of the 2015 financial year. We remain on track to deliver at least US$4.0 billion of productivity gains from our core portfolio by the end of the 2017 financial year. Click here for the full report: (VIEW LINK)