By Matt Chambers

September 20, 2017 - BHP Billiton has officially split from the Minerals Council of Australia’s climate change position, with the big miner renewing calls for a Clean Energy Target and stressing emissions reduction is critical to any solution to Australia’s power crisis.

The call for a focus on clean energy, along with reliability and affordability, comes as Malcolm Turnbull considers softening the focus on carbon emissions in any proposed energy target to get it through a hostile Coalition partyroom.

It came as BHP yesterday committed to publishing a list of material differences in climate and energy policy between it and the industry associations it belongs to, after pressure from a small group of shareholders.

“We support a strong bias to action and we support the recommendations included in the Finkel Review,” BHP’s Australian minerals operations president Mike Henry told an Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce lunch in Melbourne yesterday.

“We need clear, stable, refreshed energy policy that enhances the structure and operation of the market, while realising the emissions reductions that are so important.”

BHP runs one of the nation’s biggest thermal coal export mines, Mt Arthur in the Hunter Valley. It is also one of the biggest consumers of power on the east coast grid with a total bill of $300m to $350m a year, largely from the Olympic Dam copper and gold mine in South Australia.

But it is not aligned with the Minerals Council’s stance that new cleaner coal-fired plants should be built without carbon capture and storage and that the focus of the power system should be mainly on affordability and energy security.

Part of the problem for BHP — and Rio Tinto, which has exited thermal coal — is that they backed the merger of the Australian Coal Association into the Minerals Council in 2013 to save costs.

This has increased the amount of pure coal companies in the MCA and means it needs to represent their interests as well, despite BHP and Rio providing the bulk of the MCA’s funding.

“We will make public, by December 31, a list of the material differences between the positions we hold on climate and energy policy, and the advocacy positions on climate and energy policy taken by industry associations to which we belong,” BHP said yesterday in a note on its website.

Mr. Henry, who sits on the Minerals Council board, says it is important that a “technology-neutral” policy be implemented, as opposed to renewable energy targets that dictate solar and wind power.

But he said emissions reduction was vital, and that coal-power technology advances such as carbon capture and storage were needed.

“We’ve played a role in advocating that in Australia and if that comes off it will help to give coal-fired generation a lower emissions footprint,” he said. “Be it coal, be it gas, be it solar, all technologies should be competing head for head on the basis of cost, emissions reduction and reliability. That is advocated for in the Finkel report, which we support.”

The reason for BHP’s website post on climate policy and industry associations became clear yesterday afternoon, when the miner revealed proposed AGM resolutions requisitioned by the Australasian Centre For Corporate Responsibility, backed by 0.0045 per cent of BHP shares on issue.

One resolution calls for BHP to review whether the industry groups it belongs to have consistent climate positions with the company and for it to leave bodies that don’t.

In its web post, BHP did not rule out leaving the Minerals Council, saying it regularly reviewed membership of industry groups.

But Mr. Henry indicated this was unlikely.

“Industry associations do a lot of good,” he said. “They allow people in industry to come together and align around better standards of operating ... and are a platform for people to discuss issues. We should never try to drive toward one player dominating that conversation and being the one who determines the view.”