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BHP Billiton

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BHP Billiton is the world's largest mining company. It was formed through the 2001 merger of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP), an Australian company, and Billiton, a British company with extensive operations in South Africa. They came together to form a dual-listed company. The Australian BHP Billiton Limited and the British BHP Billiton Plc are separate listed companies and have separate shareholder bodies, but they operate as one business with identical boards of directors and a single management structure. The Australian company owns around 60% of the operating business and the main headquarters is in Melbourne. The British holding company owns the other 40% and there is a secondary headquarters in London.

The company operates a wide variety of mining and processing operations in 25 countries, including iron, diamonds, coal, petroleum, bauxite amongst other metals and mined products, with a total workforce of 36,000 people.

In March 2005 BHP Billiton announced a US$7.3 billion agreed bid for another mining company WMC Resources, owners of the Olympic Dam uranium mine in South Australia, along with nickel, mineral sands and fertiliser mines in other places. The takeover achieved 90% acceptance on 17 June 2005, and 100% ownership was announced on 2 August 2005, achieved through compulsory acquisition of the last 10% of the shares.

The group publishes its accounts in US Dollars. Its turnover for the year ended 30 June 2005 was $29.587 billion. Profit before tax was $8.741 billion and profit for the year was $6.398 billion. Both of these figures were up around 90% on the previous year as BHP Billiton benefitted from a global escalation of commodity prices.

Contents

Broken Hill Proprietary Company

Former Broken Hill Proprietary Company Corporate Logo
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Former Broken Hill Proprietary Company Corporate Logo

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company or BHP was incorporated in 1895, operating the mine at Broken Hill in western New South Wales. In 1915, the company ventured into steel manufacturing, with its operations based primarily in Newcastle, New South Wales. The company grew to become Australia's largest corporation.

The company began petroleum exploration in the 1960s with discoveries in Bass Strait, an activity which became an increasing focus as their manufacturing operations began to become less profitable with the opening of the Australian economy. They began to diversify offshore in a variety of projects. One infamous project was the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea, where the company was successfully sued by the indigenous inhabitants because of the environmental damage caused by the mine operations.

The inefficiencies of what was, by global standards, a small steel operation in Newcastle finally caught up with the company and Newcastle operations were slowly wound down in the 1990s, leaving Port Kembla as their only iron smelter. The 'long products' side of the steel business was spun off to form OneSteel in 2000.

In 2001, BHP merged with the Billiton mining company to form BHP Billiton, now one of the largest mining companies in the world. The 'flat products' side of steel business was spun off to form BHP Steel in 2002, as part of the merger. BHP Steel itself was renamed to BlueScope Steel in late 2003.

Billiton

Billiton was the name of a Dutch and later British-based mining company.

Billiton (mining co.) origins stretch back to 29 September 1860, when the articles of association were approved by a meeting of shareholders in the Groot Keizerhof hotel in The Hague, Netherlands.

Two months later, the company acquired the mineral rights to tin-rich islands of Banka and Billiton in the Indonesian archipelago, off the eastern coast of Sumatra.

Billiton's initial business forays included tin and lead smelting in The Netherlands, followed in the 1940s by bauxite mining in Indonesia and Suriname. In 1970, Royal Dutch/Shell acquired Billiton and accelerated the scope of progress of this growth. The tin and lead smelter in Arnhem, Netherlands is shut down in the 80s.

In 1997, Billiton Plc became a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

Throughout the 1990s and beyond, Billiton Plc experienced considerable growth. Its portfolio included aluminium smelters in South Africa and Mozambique, nickel operations in Australia and Colombia, base metals mines in South America, Canada and South Africa, coal mines in Australia, Colombia and South Africa, as well as interests in operations in Brazil, Suriname, Australia (aluminium) and South Africa (titanium minerals and steel and ferroalloys).

In 2001 Billiton Plc merged with the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) to form BHP Billiton.

Mines and Processing Facilities

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See also

BHP Billiton is one of a dominant trio of integrated global mining companies. The other two are: Former division of BHP Billiton 'BHP STEEL' renamed to Bluescope Steel.

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