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BHP had been widely tipped to announce a $3 billion buy-back.

CEO Andrew Mackenzie said capital management was a priority and the company hoped to be able to return excess cash to shareholders.

“We’re not quite ready,” he admitted on a teleconference yesterday.

Mackenzie said any buy-back would be undertaken in a “consistent and predictable” way.

“Being able to do something in a very sustainable, predictable way and a way that we can carry on for a few years, but cash generation is strong, our productivity gains are about $1 billion more than we said we’d achieve, our capital is $1 billion less than we said we’d achieve, so the balance sheet is strong and getting stronger and laying the basis for future discussions on capital management, which we talk about all the time at board level,” he said.

He added that any buy-back wouldn’t be dictated by the demerger.

“The demerger has no impact on whatever capital management program we plan to do.”