Oil-rich Norway's central bank has just downscaled its overall stakes in global mining giant BHP Billiton, selling thousands of shares in the U.K.-listed side even as it bought a further million shares in the company's Australia-listed arm.

The Melbourne-based Anglo-Australian giant miner, in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange on Wednesday, disclosed that the Norges central bank had divested 268,606 shares on August 22 in BHP Billiton PLC, with its total holding in the London-listed arm now at 63,247,753 shares, or below 3 per cent.

Just over the last month, the Norwegian central bank picked up a further 1.6 million Limited shares in ASX-listed BHP Billiton Ltd.

The bank's exact holding won't be divulged by Billiton until its annual report gets published in late September, although it hints that Norges Bank's overall investment has increased somewhat.

Last week, the Anglo-Australian giant miner announced it is scrapping plans on the $30 billion expansion of the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine mega project.

Yesterday, it confirmed it had divested its Yeelirrie uranium deposit to Canadian company Cameco Corp for $430 million.

"We can't pursue all of the growth operations that are before us, and we need to develop the ones with the best returns," BHP spokesman Antonios Papaspiropoulos had said.

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