On Tuesday, BHP Billiton made a cautious approach fpr its potash expansion. The move was to keep the USD14 billion Canadian project running through the delay of the production at the giant deposit until 2020.

BHP outlined a plan to keep the company's options open. This was after a 15% drop was experienced in itshalf-year profit. The plan was the company's first set of results under its new Chief Executive Officer, Andrew Mackenzie.

Major miners faced pressure to sell off underperforming assets and tackle debt. This was after years of rampant acquisitions and spending on new mines as prices of products had steadily decreased.

BHP is the world's biggest miner that had missed forecasts mainly because of the mining tax adjustments in Australia and other non-operational items. BHP is among the world's big five miners along with Glencore Xstrata. BHP held slightly better than its peers as it slashed USD2.7 billion in costs despite the slide in commodity prices. BHP stepped up output of copper, oil, coal and iron ore.