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News Wrap

IN THIS morning’s <i>News Wrap:</i> unions explore fine print on BHP job cuts; Mincor says nickel to bounce back in 2015; and ASX suspends Clive Palmer’s Australasian Resources.

Lou Caruana

Unions explore fine print on BHP job cuts

BHP Billiton’s plan to cut 700 jobs from its coking coal joint venture with Mitsubishi may prove harder than first thought, with unions exploring a contractual term that suggests contractors should be cut before permanent workers, according to the Australian Financial Review.

BHP Billiton and Mitsubishi announced the cuts last week in response to low prices for coking coal, and the move is expected to be delivered through voluntary redundancies for workers captured under the enterprise agreement struck in October 2012.

Mincor says nickel to bounce back in 2015

Mincor Resources chief executive David Moore says weakness in the nickel price is likely to continue for the rest of this year before pushing up towards $US20,000 a tonne in 2015 on the back of insufficient global supply, according to the Australian Financial Review.

Since January, when Indonesia introduced a complete ban on exports of unprocessed minerals, nickel has outperformed all other base metals with prices soaring to the highest in more than two years.

But prices have slumped in recent weeks on the realisation that supply hasn’t decreased as much as expected following the ban.

ASX suspends Clive Palmer's Australasian Resources

Clive Palmer's Australasian Resources was one of 19 companies suspended by the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Palmer and his private company Mineralogy collectively own almost 70% of Australasian Resources, which has a market capitalisation of $10 million.

Australasian holds undeveloped iron ore and nickel tenements, and is the company Palmer’s political ally and Western Australian Senator Dio Wang was in charge of before his resignation in May.

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