Billiton was founded 29 September 1860, when its articles of association were approved by a meeting of
shareholders in the hotel in
The Hague, Netherlands. Two months later, the company acquired
mineral rights to the
Belitung (formerly
Billiton) and
Bangka Islands in the
Netherlands Indies archipelago off the eastern coast of
Sumatra. Billiton's initial ventures included tin and lead
smelting in the Netherlands, followed in the 1940s by
bauxite mining in
Indonesia and
Suriname. In 1970,
Shell acquired Billiton. Billiton opened a tin smelting and refining plant in
Phuket, Thailand, named
Thaisarco (for Thailand Smelting And Refining Company, Limited). In 1994, South Africa's
Gencor acquired the mining division of Billiton excluding the downstream metal division. Billiton was divested from Gencor in 1997, and was amalgamated with
Gold Fields in 1998. In 1997, Billiton plc became a constituent of the
FTSE 100 Index and in 2001 Billiton plc
merged with the Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP) to form BHP Billiton.
Broken Hill Proprietary Company The Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (BHP), also known by the
nickname , was incorporated on 13 August 1885, operating the silver and lead mine at
Broken Hill, in western
New South Wales, Australia. The Broken Hill group floated on 10 August 1885. The first consignment of Broken Hill ore (48
tons, 5
cwt, 3
gr) was smelted at the Intercolonial Smelting and Refining Company's works at
Spotswood, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne. Together with a
half-dozen backers, including station manager
George McCulloch (a young cousin of Victorian Premier
Sir James McCulloch), Rasp formed the
Broken Hill Company staking out the entire Hill. As costs mounted during the ensuing months of fruitless search, three of the original seven (now remembered as the
Syndicate of Seven) sold their shares, so that, on the eve of the company's great success, there were nine shareholders, including Rasp, McCulloch, Philip Charly (aka Charley), David James, James Poole (five of the original syndicate of seven, which had previously included George Urquhart and G.A.M. Lind), Bowes Kelly, W. R. Wilson, and William Jamieson (who had bought shares from several of the founders).
John Darling, Jr. became a director of the company in 1892 and was chairman of directors from 1907 to 1914. Strongly encouraged by the
New South Wales Minister for Public Works,
Arthur Hill Griffith, in 1915, the company ventured into steel manufacturing, with its operations based primarily at the
Newcastle Steelworks. The decision to move from mining ore at Broken Hill to opening a steelworks at Newcastle was due to the technical limitations in recovering value from mining the lower-lying sulphide ores. The discovery of
Iron Knob and Iron Monarch near the western shore of the
Spencer Gulf in
South Australia, combined with the refinement, by BHP metallurgists
A. D. Carmichael and
Leslie Bradford, of the
froth flotation technique for separating zinc sulphides from the accompanying
gangue and subsequent conversion (Carmichael–Bradford process) to oxides of the metal, allowed BHP to economically extract valuable metals from the heaps of
tailings up to high at the mine site. In 1942, the
Imperial Japanese Navy targeted the BHP steelworks during the largely unsuccessful
shelling of Newcastle. Newcastle operations were closed in 1999, and a commemorative sculpture,
The Muster Point, was installed on Industrial Drive, in the suburb of
Mayfield, New South Wales. The long products side of the steel business was spun off to form
OneSteel in 2000. In the 1950s, BHP began
petroleum exploration, which became an increasing focus following oil and
natural gas discoveries in
Bass Strait in the 1960s. BHP began to diversify into a variety of mining projects overseas. Those included the
Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea, where the company was successfully sued by the indigenous inhabitants because of the
environmental degradation caused by mining operations. BHP had better success with the giant
Escondida copper mine in Chile, of which it owns 57.5%, and at the
Ekati Diamond Mine in northern Canada, which BHP contracted for in 1996, began mining in 1998,
BHP Billiton , Western Australia In 2001, BHP
merged with the Billiton mining company to form BHP Billiton. In March 2005, BHP Billiton announced a US$7.3
billion agreed bid for
WMC Resources, owners of the
Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium mine in South Australia, nickel operations in Western Australia and Queensland, and a Queensland fertiliser plant. On 8 November 2007, BHP Billiton announced it was seeking to purchase rival mining group
Rio Tinto in an all-share deal. The initial offer of 3.4 shares of BHP Billiton stock for each share of Rio Tinto was rejected by the board of Rio Tinto for "significantly undervaluing" the company. A formal hostile bid of 3.4 BHP Billiton shares for each Rio Tinto share was announced on 6 February 2008; The bid was withdrawn 25 November 2008 due to the
2008 financial crisis. As global nickel prices fell, on 25 November 2008, Billiton announced it would drop its A$66 billion takeover of rival Rio Tinto Group, stating that the "risks to shareholder value" would "increase" to "an unacceptable level" due to the
2008 financial crisis. On 21 January 2009, BHP Billiton announced the
Ravensthorpe Nickel Mine in Western Australia would cease operations, ending shipments of ore from Ravensthorpe to the Yabulu nickel plant in Queensland Australia. Yabulu refinery was subsequently sold to Queensland billionaire
Clive Palmer, becoming the
Palmer Nickel and Cobalt Refinery. The
Pinto Valley mine in the United States was also closed. Mine closures and general scaling back during the
2008 financial crisis accounted for 6,000 employee lay offs. On 9 December 2009, as the nickel market became saturated by both spiraling economics and cheaper extraction methods, BHP Billiton sold its
Ravensthorpe Nickel Minewhich had cost A$2.4 billion to build
First Quantum Minerals for US$340 million. First Quantum, a Canadian company, was one of three bidders for the mine, tendering the lowest offer, and returned the mine to production in 2011. Ravensthorpe cost BHP US$3.6 billion in write-downs when it was shut in January 2009 after less than a year of production. In January 2010, following the BHP Billiton purchase of
Athabasca Potash for ,
The Economist reported that, by 2020, BHP Billiton could produce approximately 15 per cent of the world demand for
potash. In August 2010, BHP Billiton made a hostile takeover bid worth for
PotashCorp. The bid came after BHP's first bid, made on 17 August, was rejected as being undervalued. This acquisition marked a major strategic move by BHP outside hard commodities and commenced the diversification of its business away from resources with high exposure to carbon price risk, like coal, petroleum and iron ore. The takeover bid was opposed by the Government of
Saskatchewan under Premier
Brad Wall. On 3 November,
Canadian Industry Minister Tony Clement announced the preliminary rejection of the deal under the
Investment Canada Act, giving BHP Billiton 30 days to refine their deal before a final decision was made; BHP withdrew its offer on 14 November 2010. Canada's decision to block the deal was generally viewed as surprising by the global investment community. On 22 February 2011, BHP Billiton announced that it had paid $4.75 billion in cash to
Chesapeake Energy for its
Fayetteville shale assets, which include of mineral rights leases and of pipeline located in north central
Arkansas. The wells on the mineral leases are currently producing about of natural gas per day. BHP Billiton planned to spend $800 million to $1 billion a year over 10 years to develop the field and triple production. On 14 July 2011, BHP Billiton announced it would acquire
Petrohawk Energy of the United States for approximately $12.1 billion in cash, considerably expanding its shale natural gas resources in an offer of $US38.75 per share. On 22 August 2012, BHP Billiton announced it was delaying its Olympic Dam copper mine expansion project in South Australia to study less capital intensive options, deferring its dual harbour strategy at West Australian Iron Ore and slowing down its Potash growth option in Canada. The company simultaneously announced a freeze on approving any major new expansion projects. On 19 August 2014, BHP Billiton announced it would create an independent global metals and mining company based on a selection of its aluminium, coal, manganese, nickel, and silver assets. The newly formed entity, named
South32, was subsequently demerged with listings on the
Australian Securities Exchange the
JSE and the
London Stock Exchange. in South Africa and Southern Africa to form a new company known as South32. BHP Billiton agreed to pay a fine of $25 million to the
United States Securities and Exchange Commission in 2015 in connection with violations of the
Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to its "hospitality program" at the
2008 Summer Olympics in
Beijing. BHP Billiton invited 176 government and state-owned-enterprise officials to attend the Games on an all-expenses-paid package. While BHP Billiton claimed to have compliance processes in place to avoid conflicts of interest, the SEC found that BHP Billiton had invited officials from at least four countries where BHP Billiton had interests in influencing the officials' decisions (
Congo,
Guinea,
Philippines and
Burundi). Towards the end of 2016 BHP Billiton indicated it would expand its petroleum business and make new investments in the sector. In February 2017, BHP Billiton announced a $2.2 billion investment in the new
BPMad Dog oil field platform in the
Gulf of Mexico. During the same year, as part of their plan to increase productivity at the
Escondida mine in Chile, which is the world's biggest copper mine, BHP Billiton attempted to get workers to accept a 4-year pay freeze, a 66% reduction in the end-of-conflict bonus offering, and increased shift flexibility. This resulted in a major workers' strike and forced the company to declare
force majeure on two shipments, which drove copper prices up by 4%. In April 2017 activist hedge fund manager
Elliott Advisors proposed a plan for BHP Billiton to spin off its American petroleum assets and significantly restructure the business, including the scrapping of its dual Sydney-London listing, suggesting shares be offered only in the United Kingdom, while leaving its headquarters and tax residences in Australia where shares would trade as depository instruments. At the time of the correspondence Elliott held about 4.1 per cent of the issued shares in London-listed BHP Billiton plc, worth $3.81 billion. Australia's government warned it would block moves to shift BHP Billiton's stock listing from Australia to the United Kingdom.
Australian Treasurer Scott Morrison said the move would be contrary to the country's national interest and would breach government orders mandating a listing on the Australian Securities Exchange. BHP Billiton dismissed the plan saying the costs and risks of Elliott's proposal outweighed any potential benefits.
BHP In May 2017, with much of the former Billiton assets having been disposed of, BHP Billiton began to rebrand itself as BHP, at first in Australia and then globally. It replaced the slogan "The Big Australian" with "Think Big", with an advertising campaign rolling out in mid May 2017. In August 2017, BHP announced that it would sell off its US shale oil and gas business. In July 2018, the company agreed to sell its shale assets to
BP for $10.5 billion. BHP indicated its intention to return funds to investors. On 29 September 2018, BHP completed the sale of its Fayetteville Onshore US gas assets to a wholly owned subsidiary of Merit Energy Company. In August 2021, BHP announced plans to exit the oil and gas industry by merging its hydrocarbon business with
Woodside Energy, Australia's largest independent gas producer. It also announced its intention to delist from the London Stock Exchange and consolidate on the
Australian Securities Exchange. This occurred in January 2022. In April 2023, BHP took over
Oz Minerals in a $9.6 billion deal. BHP made an offer to acquire
Anglo American for £31 billion in April 2024; however, the offer was rejected by the Anglo American as "highly unattractive". A revised offer was also rejected in May 2024. In July 2024, BHP and
Lundin Mining agreed to jointly acquire 100% of Filo Corp. through a Canadian plan of arrangement. BHP and Lundin Mining also agreed to form a 50/50 joint venture to hold the Filo del Sol (FDS) and Josemaria projects. In December 2025, BHP agreed to sell a stake in the inland power network used by its Western Australia iron-ore business to
BlackRock's
Global Infrastructure Partners for . In March 2026, BHP announced it had appointed Brendon Craig as its new chief executive. Craig will take over the role from 1 July 2026 from Mike Henry. ==Corporation==