Mining Weekly reported that BHP Billiton Ltd. (NYSE:BHP,ASX:BHP,LSE:BLT) may slash its $4-billion spend on US shale wells as it struggles against falling prices for iron ore, oil and copper.

As quoted in the market news:

The mining giant, which has cut capital spending for the past two years, needs further savings to have enough cash to meet a promise not to reduce its dividend, analysts and investors said, with some tipping it could slice its US onshore drilling budget in half.

Richard Knights, an analyst at London-based investment bank Liberum, stated:

When you are pushed up against the wall you have to make some difficult decisions, so all those things are possibilities. Commodity prices are falling very quickly, very sharply.

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