BHP Billiton may renew iron-ore price push

LONDON - BHP Billiton Ltd, the world's largest mining company, may use last month's 16 percent decline in iron-ore prices to persuade steelmaking clients to pay cash instead of contract-based prices from the next quarter.

Vale SA, Rio Tinto Group and BHP, the world's biggest exporters of the ore used to make steel, scrapped a 40-year custom this year of pricing supplies in 12-month periods, replacing it with quarterly contracts based on the average cash or spot price over three months. Ending fixed-term contracts altogether would be the next step.

"There has been a drive from the large players in the iron ore market to spot prices for some time," Alex Tonks, a commodity strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Sydney, said by telephone. "It really should occur this half; I would be thinking the next quarter."