BHP sheds Olympic Dam jobs

Mining giant BHP Billiton will shed hundreds of jobs at its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia, but the company hopes to redeploy some contractor roles.

Mining giant BHP Billiton is laying off hundreds of workers at its Olympic Dam mine in SA. (AAP)

BHP Billiton is laying off hundreds of workers at its Olympic Dam mine in South Australia.

The mining giant is understood to be axing 90 permanent positions and 210 contractor roles, but BHP will work to redeploy some staff to other roles at the mine or elsewhere in the company.

BHP confirmed jobs will be made redundant but did not say how many, with the redeployment process to be completed later this year.

A company spokeswoman said ways of reducing costs at Olympic Dam, which produces copper, uranium and gold, had been identified.

"As a result, a number of positions will be made redundant, however the impact of these redundancies will be minimised through some redeployments opportunities," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

The mining company has recently made a case to double copper production despite falling prices.

It cancelled a $30 billion expansion of the copper-uranium Olympic Dam project in 2012.