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BHP Billiton Ltd, the world's largest miner, will cut copper processing fees paid to smelters in South Korea and India for 2007 contracts, people involved in the price negotiations said.

BHP will pay $60 a metric ton for treatment charges and 6.0 cents a pound for refining charges to turn copper ore and concentrate into refined metal for the year that starts Jan. 1, said the people, who asked not to be identified because of the confidentiality of the negotiations.

The 2007 fees compare with previous settlements of $95 a ton and 9.5 cents a pound for calendar 2006. BHP also terminated a 30-year so-called ``price participation'' clause, which could depress earnings at so-called custom smelters that don't have their own mines and use BHP agreements as a benchmark.

The clause allows processors to raise fees when copper prices gain. Up to the calendar 2006 contract, smelters charged an extra 10 percent of the increase in copper prices once they rose above 90 cents a pound.

Smelters that settled the 2007 processing fees with BHP include Vedanta Resources Plc, India's largest producer of copper and zinc, and South Korea's LS-Nikko Copper Inc, the world's third-largest copper smelter, the people said.