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/Dutch company with extensive operations in South Africa. It is now a dual-listed company. The Australian BHP 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. There is a secondary headquarters in London.

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

In March 2005 BHP Billiton announced a US$7.3 billion agreed bid for another mining company WMC Resources.

Internal links

BHP Billiton is one of a dominant trio of integrated global mining companies. The other two are:

• Anglo American
• Rio Tinto

External link

• BHP Billiton website