Interview: BHP's CFO on the Big Australian's $8b profit

Yeah, let me talk through the results, Juliet. Financially and operationally, both very strong performance. From operations perspective, volume was up 5% and as I was saying, cost down 4% at unit cost level. Western Australia IO continued to be the leading iron ore business in the world. BMA in Queensland, production up 14%. And copper this half grew 10%, contributing 40% to EBITDA. All that delivered a net operating cash flow of more than 8 billion this half, which on a run rate basis is more than 15 billion that we have generated in all bar one of the past 15 years. The stability is really the hallmark for BHP and really valued by our investors. The dividends that we have declared are 50 US cents per share, that's 79 Australian dollar cents, that is $2.5 billion US Dollars. And we have continued to prosecute on our attractive organic growth options. From a dividend perspective, I would say since our capital allocation policy was put in place around eight years back, we have returned 83 billion US in cash returns to our shareholders. But equally, we are a long-term company and so are our shareholders, and on their behalf we are investing in growth on commodities like copper, like I mentioned. While ore continues to be a fantastic business for us, with lowest cost in the industry for the fifth year in running, we also have copper growth now coming through in these results with 40% EBITDA contribution, and this is just the start because we have a fantastic area of very attractive investment opportunities for copper here in Australia, in Chile, Argentina, and in the US, and all that we are going to be investing in for value for our shareholders while being very cognizant that dividends are really important to our investors, and that's why we have at least minimum 50% payout ratio as a policy.

So what I would say is that iron ore is a fantastic business for BHP and continues to be and will be. And in fact, as I mentioned, not only are the lowest cost producer. Last financial year we generated $8 more in cash per ton of iron ore compared to the nearest competitor in Pilbara. But equally, as per our strategy, we have the aspiration for more and more future facing commodity exposure in our portfolio, and copper is that commodity with multi-users, with demand and supply dynamics which are very positive, which has a positive outlook. And we are the largest resource holder of copper in the world, first or second producer of copper in the world. And now, by end of June we would have delivered 24% growth in last three years just on copper. A fantastic place to be, and some more growth as I said to come. And that is an exposure we are looking to add. And I should also mention we have potash business in Canada which again is going to be producing its first tons by end of next calendar year, will come in at the lowest end of the cost curve, and is a multi-decade asset which will be generating lots of cash and returns for our shareholders. So very excited about our growth portfolio and the portfolio shaping that is happening.