San Juan coal mine and power plant in New Mexico US, owned by BHP Billiton's subsidiary New Mexico Coal. Photo: Doc Searls via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)| Sectors | Coal Mining, Mining, Oil and Gas Extraction |
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BHP Billiton is listed at the Stock Exchanges of London, New York, Australia and Johannesburg. |
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| Website | https://www.bhp.com |
BHP Billiton is the world's largest mining company. It occupies significant positions in major commodity businesses, including aluminium, energy coal and metallurgical coal, copper, manganese, iron ore, uranium, nickel, silver and titanium minerals, and has substantial interests in oil, gas, liquefied natural gas and diamonds. BHP Billiton was created through the merger of BHP and Billiton in 2001. BHP was founded in 1885 in Australia, to operate the silver and lead mine at Broken Hill in western New South Wales. Billiton was founded in 1860 in the Netherlands, to exploit tin mines in Sumatra. BHP Billiton earned revenues in 2015 of total USD44.6 billion. The number of employees that same year amounts to 29,670.
In 2012 BHP was forced to negotiate more secure contracts for workers at all it's Bowen Basin operations, after an 18 month during dispute with the workers unions.
Indonesia - Coal : BHP Billiton's Indo Met Coal project concessions cover large areas of forest land. The community of the village of Maruwei in the Murung Raya Regency of Central Kalimantan province, has lost access to customary forest. The village is situated close to the site of the planned new Haju Mine, the first part of the huge Indo Met Coal project owned by the multinational mining giant BHP Billiton and Indonesian firm Adaro Energy. The village itself will not be displaced by the new mine, but the Indo Met Coal project has taken land used by local people and given the traditional owners payment of just 100 rupiah (around €0.006) per square metre.
BHP was successfully sued by the indigenous inhabitants because of the environmental degradation caused by the OK Tedi copper mine operations in Papua New Guinea.
BHP Billiton was fined USD 25 million by the US Securities and Exchange Commission for violating anti-bribery law by paying for luxury hotels, sightseeing trips, and event tickets for government officials and their spouses at the 2008 Olympic Games. According to the SEC, BHP footed the bill for officials who were “in a position to help the company with its business or regulatory endeavours,” including officials connected with BHP contract negotiations or regulatory dealings to obtain mining rights in Congo, Guinea, Burundi, and the Philippines (source corruptionincoal.org).
Mining giant BHP Billiton has posted a huge half-year net loss of USD5.67 billion and warned that weak commodity prices will continue. The figure for the six months to December compared with a profit of USD5.35 billion for the same period in 2014.
The number of confirmed deaths from the collapse of a dam in Brazil has risen to 17, according to an update from mining giant BHP Billiton. Two people working on the dam, which held back waste water from iron ore mining, are unaccounted for, BHP said. BHP owns the dam with Brazil's Vale via a joint-venture, Samarco. A court has frozen their assets in the country (source: BBC).