A report in The Australian paper on Monday said that BHP may close its Ravensthorpe nickel mine in west Australia was on the brink of closing due to falling global metals prices.
The company has provided little guidance on production figures as demand from its customers fell, but analysts speculated that BHP has taken the view it will try keep operations running at capacity unless it falls into the red.
The company declined to comment on the newspaper report, saying only that "material changes" to any operations would be disclosed to the market.
Prices for nickel have fallen to around $10,775 a tonne from a peak of $51,000 a tonne in May 2007.
Ravensthorpe began production in 2007 and cost $2.2 billion to build.
In October BHP said that output from Ravensthorpe would be around 7,000 tonnes in the January-June half year against 2,000 tonnes in the six months ended Dec. 31, 2008though the company predicted that it would be at least two years before the mine hit full capacity of 50,000 tonnes a year.
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