JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The world’s largest mining company BHP Billiton was unlikely to invest in Africa for the next five years to avoid putting “risk on risk”, its chief commercial officer Alberto Calderon said on Tuesday.

Calderon told Ambrian Capital mining analyst Peter Davey, during a marketing briefing, that BHP Billiton would do nothing in Africa in the medium term, which he defined as five years.

"We've said that we don't want to put risk on risk, which means we have focused on our own backyard. The decision of the company is to really focus its investments in the medium term to the long term in the areas that we know, in Australia, in the Gulf of Mexico, and the places where we are already invested," Calderon added.

Davey had asked for an update on the company's pursuit of copper opportunities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and iron-ore opportunities in West Africa, after BHP Billiton had forecast a highly positive future for copper and iron-ore.

Calderon replied that finding any tier-one opportunity was difficult, but that doing so in copper was even more so.

While BHP Billiton had noted opportunities in the DRC, it had been put off by a lack of security of exploration tenement.

"Even for the ‘very green' prospect, it's complicated," he added.

There had been recent reports of copper companies experiencing issues in the DRC and, in its pursuit of iron-ore in West Africa – between Guinea and Liberia – there had been scale and logistical constraints.

"Having said that, in the business-development space, if we should come across any tier-one possibility, we would probably get into West Africa, and also into the DRC, Zambia and the copperbelt area. If we can get hold of what we call ‘very green' opportunities in Africa, it's something we would do, " he said

But there would be no investment of any significance in the medium term.

In Guinea, BHP Billiton owns a third of an alumina prospect, and is also involved in a prefeasibility study in the DRC at Inga Three, which is potentially one of the largest hydroelectric power sites in the world.

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