PILBARA

104
MINING | BHP Billiton
AUGUST 2014 | Resource Global Network
105
Anglo-Australian corporation
BHP Billiton (ASX, NYSE: BHP;
LON: BLT; JSE: BIL) has a
history in the mining business
exceeding 150 years, and
it shows in the company’s
ubiquity. Dual-listed in the UK
and Australia following the
merging of Australia’s Broken
Hill Proprietary Company Limited
with Anglo-Dutch company
Billiton PLC in 2001, the
company now has operations
in 25 countries and employs
around 41,000 people. Its
business sprawls across a wide
range of resources, including
aluminium, manganese, nickel,
coal, copper, iron ore, potash and
even petroleum.
At the conclusion of financial year 2014
(FY14), BHP seems bigger than ever. Despite
market conditions that weren’t particularly
propitious, the company’s annual Operational
Review highlighted a 9% increase in total
group production and new annual records
set across a staggering 12 operations and
four commodities. Overall group production
is expected to grow 16% over the next two
years to the end of FY15.
Speaking within the Operational Review,
BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie attributes the
company’s improved operating performance
to its focus on productivity and endeavours
to highlight its best-performing business
divisions.
“Western Australia Iron Ore and Queensland
Coal annual production exceeded guidance,
with both rising by more than 20% as
we delivered more tonnes from existing
infrastructure and growth projects ahead of
schedule,” Mackenzie says.
“At Escondida [BHP’s copper operations in
Chile], an increase in mill throughput and
concentrator utilisation offset copper grade
decline, while our Onshore US business
delivered a 73% increase in petroleum liquids
production.”
Iron ore and coal at the
forefront
BHP’s Western Australian Iron Ore (WAIO)
business benefited in the 2014 financial
year from the early commissioning of the
Jimblebar mine, located 40 kilometres east
of Newman in the Pilbara region, which
cost BHP US$3.2 billion to build. The mine
delivered its first production in the first
quarter of FY 2014 ending in September
2013, and was officially opened on 23 April
2014 in the company of Western Australia
Premier Colin Barnett, as well as that of joint
venture participants ITOCHU Corporation and
Mitsui & Co. Ltd.
Having begun operations ahead of schedule,
the Jimblebar mine is now expected to ramp
up to 35 million tonnes per annum (mtpa)
before the end of the 2014 calendar year,
rather than the end of FY15 as previously
forecast. BHP expects this to support
a further 20mt increase in total WAIO
production in FY15 to approximately 245mt.
Bowen Basin, Queensland, Australia