BHP Billiton

BHP Billiton is one of the world's largest mining companies. It was formed through the 2001 merger of BHP, an Australian company, and Billiton, which was operated from London but with the majority of its operations in South Africa. The two companies still technically exist as separate entities but share identical boards and management structures. It is now headquartered in Melbourne.

History

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company was incorporated in 1895, operating the mine at Broken Hill in western New South Wales.

In 1915, the company ventured into steel manufacture, its operations mainly based at Newcastle. The company grew to become Australia's largest.

The company began petroleum exploration in the 1960's 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 One Steel in 2000 and the remaining flat products side of the business was spun off to form BHP Steel in 2002, as part of the merger.

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Current activities

The company operates a wide variety of mining and processing operations, including iron, diamonds, coal, petroleum amongst other metals and mined products, with a total workforce of 38,000 people.