BHP Billiton, the world's biggest miner, has made a plea for the “emotion and anxiety” to be taken out of the iron ore business with a shift to market-based pricing like oil or coal.
The call by Marius Kloppers, chief executive of BHP, yesterday came a day after Chinese authorities formally arrested four employees of Rio Tinto, the miner's main competitor. The arrest was the latest stage of a crisis that started over Rio's negotiations to fix an annual price for iron ore.
As BHP unveiled a halving of full-year profits, Mr Kloppers suggested it was only a matter of time before the traditional system of pricing iron ore on contractual agreements was replaced.
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