Diversified mining company BHP Billiton expected to sell roughly the same volume of iron-ore in the second half of its financial year as it did in its first half as “substantial destocking” takes place in China, BHP Billiton CEO Marius Kloppers said on Wednesday.

Kloppers said, however, the situation was “a little more complex” for the company’s two other steel-feed products, manganese and coking coal. Much of its manganese output is from South Africa.

He said that, while iron-ore was very North Asia-focused with 50% going into China – and hence a reasonable degree of forward visibility with the destocking in China – manganese and coking coal had North American, European, South American and Indian markets.

In addition, manganese was a “very storable product” and hence it was far more difficult to judge its destocking status.

“My observation that the risk is probably to the downside in coking coal," he added.

The cutbacks in manganese production had already been made, totalling almost 50% in the second half on a unit basis.

Kloppers believed that a “substantial amount of destocking” had taken place in China, which led him to anticipate that the company would sell approximately the same volume of material in its iron-ore business over the second half of the year as it did in the first, for a total of about 130-million tons a year.

BHP Billiton announced in January that reductions would lower 2009’s manganese ore production by 1,5-million tons, against an output capacity of seven-million tons a year.

The company reported first-half net profit of $2,6-billion, which represented a decline of 56,5% compared with the same period a year earlier.

“During the six months to December 2008, we have witnessed an unprecedented fall in commodity prices, with market prices falling in the order of 50% during this period,” the group commented.

“We believe it is likely that uncertainty will extend into the medium term.”

Stripping out once-off items, profit increased 2,2%, to $6,1-billion, compared with $5,99-billion a year ago.

The one-time items included write downs after the suspension of the Ravensthorpe and Yabulu mines, costs relating to its abandoned offer for Rio Tinto and the impairment of assets and increased rehabilitation provisions for its Newcastle steelworks.

However, net operating cash flow was still the group's highest ever, at $13,1-billion, and BHP increased its interim dividend 41% over last year, to 41c a share.

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