BHP Billiton is to cut jobs at its Olympic Dam project in South Australia amidst a slump in commodity prices.
The mining company, which is yet to confirm the number of job losses, said that there are plans to redeploy some workers to either Olympic Dam in South Australia or elsewhere in its operations.
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BHP Billiton told ABC: "Over the past few months, Olympic Dam has been focused on identifying opportunities to safely reduce costs in order to build a strong, viable business.
"As a result, a number of positions will be made redundant, however the impact of these redundancies will be minimised through some redeployments opportunities."
The redeployment process is expected to be completed later in 2015 and up until then, the company will not be able to determine a net figure for workforce redundancies.
According to SA Opposition Leader Steven Marshall, there may be as many as 300 redundancies. Out of this, 100 positions are expected to be allocated for the Olympic Dam expansion plan.
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By GlobalDataSouth Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said: "It’s still the largest underground mine in the nation."
According to Weatherill, thousands of people are employed at the mine and major changes are coming up.
Olympic Dam is a multi-mineral ore body containing uranium oxide, copper, gold and silver.
Image: BHP Bilton’s Olympic Dam. Photo: courtesy of BHP Billiton.
