BHP Billiton

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BHP Billiton <tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align:center; padding:16px 0 16px 0;">Image:BHP Billiton Logo.png</td></tr>
Type	Public (NYSE: BHP, LSE: BLT, ASX: BHP)
Founded	Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) 1895; Billiton plc 1860; Merger of BHP & Billiton 2001(creation of DLC)
Headquarters	Image:Flag of Australia.svg Melbourne, Australia (main headquarters), and Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg London, England (secondary headquarters) <tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Key people</th><td>Charles (Chip) Goodyear (CEO)</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Industry</th><td>Mining</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Products</th><td>iron, diamonds, coal, petroleum, bauxite, copper, nickel, uranium, silver</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Revenue</th><td>Image:Green Arrow Up.svg$32.153 billion USD (Y.E. 30 June 2006)</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Net income</th><td>Image:Green Arrow Up.svg$10.534 billion USD</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align:right; padding-right:0.75em;">Website</th><td>bhpbilliton.com</td></tr>

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. The two together form a dual-listed company.

1 Corporate structure
2 History
- 2.1 Broken Hill Proprietary Company
- 2.2 Billiton
3 Mines and Processing Facilities
4 External links

[edit] Corporate structure

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 revenue (or turnover) for the year ending 30 June 2006 was $32.153 billion. Profit before tax was $14.166 billion and profit for the year was $10.534 billion. Both of these figures were up significantly on the previous year as BHP Billiton benefitted from a continued global escalation of commodity prices.

[edit] History

[edit] Broken Hill Proprietary Company

Image:BHP Logo.png

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company or BHP was incorporated in 1885, 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.

In 1994 BHP negotiated a licence to prospect and mine coal in Phulbari, Bangladesh. BHP later sold on the licence to Asia Energy PLC, and reaction to their proposal to strip mine the coal in a densely populated area, has led over 200 protesters being shot, with six deaths.

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, the largest mining company in the world. The 'flat products' side of steel business was spun off to form BHP Steel (renamed to BlueScope Steel in late 2003) in 2002, as part of the merger.

[edit] 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).