BHP Billiton
(ASX:BHP) and Rio Tinto
(ASX:RIO) shares rallied 3.7 per cent and 3.1 per cent respectively at open after copper prices spiked more than two per cent on positive US manufacturing data.
Meanwhile both of the miner’s operations, Rio’s Bell Bay aluminium smelter in northern Tasmania and BHP’s Mitsubishi Alliance in Queensland, are expected to be at the centre of a battle over worker’s bargaining rights in the new year.
Talks will start on January 9 between BHP and unions, and BHP’s hoping they will break at bargaining deadlock at its Bowen Basin coalmines that have been hit by industrial action since halfway through last year.
BHP Billiton posted a net profit of $22.3 billion in the 2011 financial year.
