“In metallurgical coal, high-cost, uneconomic supply has remained resilient although we do expect to see an increasing number of production cuts, particularly in the United States,” BHP said as part of an investor presentation on Monday.

“Given robust underlying demand growth for premium hard coking coals, pricing for our products is likely to be well supported in the medium and longer term.”

The mining house said the thermal coal market remained well supplied – “prolonging” a weaker pricing environment.

“While demand from key importing regions remains steady, prices are unlikely to respond until uneconomic supply exits the market,” it said.

BHP said its coal business re-established its competitive advantage by closing high-cost capacity and sustainably reducing costs.

“All of our coal operations remain cash positive despite the low price environment and are well placed for margin expansion when prices are expected to recover in the medium term,” the company said.

“Productivity in the coal business has improved significantly in the last two years, with unit costs cut by 37% in metallurgical coal and by 21% in energy coal.

“The group is targeting a further 10% reduction in unit costs at Queensland coal in the 2015 financial year and a 15% decline in unit costs at New South Wales Energy Coal by the end of the 2016 financial year.”

Earlier this month the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance joint venture announced plans to cut 100 jobs from its Crinum longwall mine by April next year.

In October BMA announced plans to cut 700 jobs across its Qld mines that employed about 6000 employees and 5000 contractors at the time.

However, a deadline for implementing those retrenchments was never revealed, while the margin-impacting Australian dollar hasn’t recovered from falling below US90c in September.