BHP's profits are again at a record thanks to the continung boom in commodity prices The world's biggest mining firm BHP Billiton has made record half-year profits, and is promising to give back $10bn (£6.25bn) to shareholders.
First-half profits nearly doubled to $10.5bn as the boom in demand for commodities boosted prices of its iron ore and copper products.
The Anglo-Australian company said it expected demand to continue to rise.
BHP, which was forced to call off a merger with Canada's giant Potash Corp, benefits hugely from Chinese demand.
The company's chief executive, Marius Kloppers, said in a statement: "While we expect a slowdown in the growth rate of global commodity demand in calendar year 2011, the economic environment still underpins a robust near term outlook for our products."
BHP has virtually no debt, and with the failure of the recent Potash merger has no obvious target for a new major tie-up.
Potash was the latest significant potential deal to founder in the past three years.
Shareholders will now see $10bn returned to them in a buy-back of shares.
Such a move reduces the number of shares in issue, meaning there are fewer pieces of the company, which then attract a bigger share of any profits.
A similar move has been announced by BHP's arch rival, Rio Tinto.
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Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/business-12476574
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