Out of the big three mining giants in Australia of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Glencore, only Glencore has made commodity price-supporting production cuts this year as seen with its plans to axe 15 million tonnes per annum of Australian coal export capacity in 2015 and the associated layoffs so far.

Last year Glencore CEO Ivan Glasenberg accused Rio and BHP Billiton of killing the super cycle in iron ore prices with their production ramp ups.

A similar situation is occurring in coal, although in this case BHP Billiton ramp ups are a stronger cause, with Glasenberg clearly frustrated at the company’s annual general meeting in May.

“Unfortunately our competitors in the world have produced more supply than demand and commodity prices are down for that reason," Glasenberg said.

"I am doing my level best to convince my competitors we should understand the words demand and supply.”

While the 15% quarter-on-quarter slide in the hard coking coal benchmark of $US93 per tonne for the September quarter has been followed by job cutting announcements at the Metropolitan, Russell Vale and Curragh mines so far, BHP Billiton still wants to grow output.

Indicating that BHP wants to see less competitive coal supply squeezed out of the market, new BHP Billiton coal chief Mike Henry told the Weekend Australian he wanted to increase coal production through productivity improvements and that more mine closures were needed to balance prices.

“If you look at some of the stuff (iron ore boss) Jimmy Wilson has done back west, or that the coal business has done in recent years, in getting more production out of the same infrastructure and equipment, there is still room to go in coal, no doubt,” he told the newspaper.

“I’m not a believer in the notion that holding back production is going to be beneficial for the business.”

There could still be a thin wedge of profit margin for BHP Billiton too. Although it pales in significance compared to other BHP businesses, Macquarie Wealth Management analysts have forecasted BHP Billiton’s Queensland coal operations to remain below $70/t in C1 cash costs right through to the 2019-2020 financial year.