Billiton Research Articles

Latest Developments in Officers’ Duties of SMEs

This paper examines the balance between officers' and directors' duties in the context of modern regulatory reform. The onus that falls on all directors, from a legal point of view, is applied irrespective of the size and complexity of the corporation. Thus, a small (micro-business) with a single director has the same legal obligation under the common law, the equitable fiduciary duties and the statutory obligations under the Corporations Act as Australia's largest entity, BHP Billiton. The current Federal Government is attempting to reduce the burden of red tape on business to help the economy. The regulators, in particular ASIC, are pursuing cases to enforce the law and increase compliance. There has been recent case law which helps explain the key statutory provisions and the underlying complexity of the law. The major defence and protection for officers' duties, is the so called “business judgement rule,” but it does not seem to be very effective and good quality insurance cover is probably much more useful in the commercial world.

Sinophobia as Corporate Tactic and the Response of Host Communities

China's State Council has charged that in 2009 BHP Billiton inflamed Australians' fear of “Chinese colour” in order to undermine Chinalco's (Aluminium Corporation of China) effort to increase its share of the Rio Tinto company. Though unproven, this is a serious charge and the more so because it suggests there is a risk that in the future firms challenged by Chinese competitors may emulate the alleged practice. Given this possibility, anti-racists require a sophisticated understanding of how firms might incorporate Sinophobia into their business strategies and how Chinese foreign direct investment is viewed by national and local communities. To further this response, we review the literature on the use of racism as a corporate tactic, discuss the Chinalco-BHP struggle, and provide a study of how one community reacted when offered the chance to host a large Chinese investment.

A literature review of titanium metallurgical processes

Various titanium metallurgical processes have been reviewed and compared for titanium dioxide and titanium metal, mainly focusing on the future development of hydrometallurgical processes. It is recognised that ilmenite is becoming increasingly important due to the rapid depletion of natural rutile. Many processes are commercially used or proposed to upgrade ilmenite to synthetic rutile. Most of these processes involve a combination of pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy and are generally expensive. The commercialised thermo-chemical chloride processes such as Kroll and Hunter processes are batch operations and need higher grade natural rutile or upgraded synthetic rutile and slag as the feed and the involvement of cost sensitive chlorination and thermo steps. Many improvements for the thermo-chemical processes have been made, but they hold little potential for significant cost reductions beyond current technology. The development of the electro-chemical processes for direct reduction of TiO 2 and electro-slag as feed material and in-situ electrolysis has achieved some success. However, some challenging issues such as redox cycling, feeding, kinetics, control heat balance have to be resolved before scaling-up to commercial applications. Direct hydrometallurgical leach processes are advantageous in processing abundant ilmenite ores, low energy consumption and produce sufficiently high quality of pigment grade TiO 2 products for a wide range of applications and major demand. Novel BHP Billiton sulphate processes have been developed to improve leaching strategies, separation of metals by solvent extraction, reduced wastes and recycling acids, and very promising for commercial applications in future. Direct chloride leaching processes have been investigated intensively, featuring purification by solvent extraction and reclaiming HCl by hydrolysis or pyrohydrolysis. Caustic leach with high selectivity and titanium dioxide nano-technology has also been developed. Further development of direct leaching ilmenite coupled with solvent extraction for titanium pigment and metal production, is recommended.

New discoveries of coal in Mozambique — Development of the coal resource estimation methodology for International Resource Reporting Standards

The coal in Mozambique's Tete province has been known about for a long time, as the artist/explorer Thomas Baines first captured onto canvass a coal outcrop on the banks of the Zambezi in the late 1850s. The first geological works in the Tete province referred to the studies of coal occurrence, and were undertaken by Richard Thornton (1859), a geologist on the Zambezi expedition under Dr David Livingstone and Guyot. However, most of the recent exploration has been conducted to ascertain the economic potential of the coal resources within the region. The majority of these resources are located within remnants of the Ecca Group of rocks, of the Karoo Supergroup, in the Zambezi graben of the Tete province of Mozambique. The coalfield consists of various sub-basins and is considered the largest undeveloped coal province in the world. Amongst others, it forms host to the well publicised Moatize metallurgical and thermal coal deposit, reported to contain 2.4 Gt of coal and located within the Moatize sub-basin. In late 2004, a consortium of companies headed by Brazilian iron-ore miner, Vale, won the right to develop the Moatize coal deposit. Other companies which tendered for this right were BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Anglo American. Vale is partnered in this project with American Metals and Coal International (AMCI), a North American coal producer, which owns 5% of the consortium. The consortium bid $122.8 M for the rights to explore and develop the coal deposit. The allocation of the tender award to Vale opened the way for smaller investors, such as the Zambezi Energy Corporation (ZEC) who decided in late 2004 to develop a number of projects within licence blocks in the Zambezi graben. Investment within the region has accelerated rapidly over the last couple of years and the region has seen a number of developments. During this time the authors have helped to develop the potential of new coal resources and have modified the traditional coal resource estimation techniques, such that they can be used for reporting coal resources according to the terminology and guidelines given in the JORC (the Joint Ore Reserves Committee) code (JORC, 2004). The paper describes the complexities of the underlying regional and local resource geology and describes the challenges of producing resource estimates to international standards, such as JORC.

BHP Billiton Forges Ahead With Large, Complex Projects

Company Profile Series Editor’s note: This is the latest in a series of profiles of leading operators, including key international and national oil companies around the globe. Although it may be known more for its mining business than its petroleum ventures, BHP Billiton has quietly built an impressive portfolio of large-scale oil and gas upstream projects throughout the world. Its strategy is to continue to undertake massive, complex projects, using a balance sheet that offers a long-term view of its holdings. BHP Billiton Petroleum—one of the core pieces of the BHP Billiton Corporation based in Australia—has exploration, development, production, and marketing activities in more than a dozen countries around the globe, including a significant deepwater position in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as operations in Australia, the UK, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Its worldwide oil exploration organization is located in Houston. The company’s core upstream oil and gas philosophy is to strive to be diversified globally while focusing on largely proven basins, such as in the US Gulf of Mexico and Australia. The firm also has a range of promising prospects in the South China Sea, Trinidad and Tobago, Algeria, Pakistan, and Malaysia. BHP Billiton produced 158.6 million BOE in 2010, a 15% increase over 2009 and has posted an 11% compound annual growth rate for output since 2007. Projects in the Gulf of Mexico and Australia contributed largely to the output increase. The firm has had more than 100% reserves replacement the past four years, said J. Michael Yeager, chief executive of BHP Billiton Petroleum. The outlook for production growth this year is flat, however, because of the impact of the drilling moratorium in the Gulf of Mexico brought on by the Macondo disaster. The petroleum sector’s strategy mirrors that of the larger corporation, with a focus on large projects with a long life span. That makes BHP Billiton different from many of its peers that have smaller assets, said Yeager. In 2010, the company spent more than USD 800 million on exploration and USD 2 billion on development. The spending allowed four major projects to come on stream last year, the latest of which was the Pyrenees oilfield development offshore Western Australia. Pyrenees, the Stybarrow FPSO development in Western Australia, and the Neptune and Shenzi tension leg platforms (TLPs) in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico are examples of the company’s large, technically challenging projects in diverse environments, Yeager said. Over the past four years, the company has tripled its upstream acreage and begun its most aggressive drilling campaign to date.

Sequence optimization in longwall coal mining

BHP Billiton’s Illawarra Coal operates several longwall coal extraction systems in the Bulli and Wongawilli coal seams in the Southern Coalfields of the Sydney Basin, Australia. IC has applied a proprietary mixed integer linear programming open pit strategic mine planning tool called Blasor to rapidly evaluate, for a number of longwall mining domains, the jointly optimal underground development strategy and mining sequences necessary. For each development scenario, the Blasor optimizer maximizes the discounted operating cash flow as the objective function, subject to mining, processing, and transportation capacity constraints and product blend constraints. When applied to the underground longwall domain sequence optimization problem, Blasor evaluates a set of carefully considered scenarios, each describing a feasible underground development and transport strategy. In this application, Blasor plays the role of a fair valuation tool for each major scenario, by determining the most valuable extraction schedule for each development scenario. This establishes a basis for comparing the economic merits of competing scenarios that are structurally different.

Optimal life-of-mine scheduling for a Bauxite mine

This paper describes a new optimized life-of-mine planning software tool called Bodor (Boddington Optimizer), developed for BHP Billiton’s Boddington Bauxite mine in south Western Australia. Bodor minimizes pre-tax net present cost (capital and operational) over a specified mine life, and is applied to a mine model consisting of bauxite pods pre-designed to a fixed cut-off grade, directly feeding a refinery with bauxite that meets grade and throughput targets in each period over the life-of-mine. Bodor has been very successful in its application to the Boddington mining operation, producing a new life-of-asset mine plan which delivers a significant reduction in net present cost. This value add is achieved primarily through a better timing of ore-body exploitation which optimally trades-off lower haulage costs against some capital costs that are brought forward. A core aspect of Bodor’s utility lies in managing various complex environmental constraints in determining the optimal extraction schedule.

Understanding the Dynamics of Community Engagement of Corporations in Communities: The Iterative Relationship Between Dialogue Processes and Local Protest at the Tintaya Copper Mine in Peru

Corporate social responsibility refers to businesses' efforts to improve their social and environmental performance. Generally, corporations implement universal standards and codes of conduct or publish reports on their activities. However, in controversial instances, such as environmental conflicts between corporations and communities, some companies have engaged communities and NGOs through deliberative processes. Despite the goal of achieving consensus among stakeholders, dialogues do not always resolve conflicts. This article examines the dialogue processes between the company BHP Billiton and communities around the Tintaya Mine (Peru) in order to understand why residents resisted deliberative spaces created to address their concerns. Through interviews and focus groups with protesters, I show that resistance was not intended to undermine deliberation, unlike what democracy theorists have previously asserted, but rather, to foster openness and understanding among the corporation and residents. Findings suggest that an iterative relationship between dialogue and resistance can improve intercultural relations and mitigate power differentials.

Development of a serious computer game based training module and its integration into working at heights mine site induction – paper II

This paper reports the findings of a collaborative project that developed and demonstrated a serious computer game (SCG) based simulation training module for mine site inductions. It is the second of two papers. The project was collaboration between the University of New South Wales, the University of Adelaide, BHP Billiton Olympic Dam Expansion, Resources and Engineering Skills Alliance, Training and Further Education South Australia and SkillsDMC. The pilot project was aimed at improving mine site inductions by developing a prototype SCG for trainers to incorporate into their regular training activities. The outcome was a high quality generic SCG that provides an interactive visualisation of an Australian mine site operation under construction. The SCG was tested under controlled conditions and subsequently deployed on site.

Your career game: how game theory can help you achieve your professional goals

Your Career Game demonstrates how game theory can help readers to understand and proactively take charge of their strategy. Authors Nathan Bennett and Stephen A. Miles teach readers to manage the interdependencies and interconnectedness among coworkers, managers, and others in a manner that supports personal efforts. Then, they show how readers can become better players. The key to learning how to play the game is career agility-in short, nimble individuals are better game players. Thois book includes conversations with a wide range of successful professionals such as Ursula Burns (Xerox), Stephen Elop (Microsoft), Marius Kloppers (BHP Billiton), Ken Frazier (Merck), and Liz McCartney (The St. Bernard Project), and discusses how their moves demonstrate elements of a game theory approach to management. This is a must-read strategic guide for anyone who seeks to advance their and navigate today's job market.

The emotional geography of a mine closure: a study of the Ravensthorpe nickel mine in Western Australia

This paper engages with the literature on emotional geographies to report on a case study of the emotions surrounding the closure of a nickel mine in the shire of Ravensthorpe in the south-west of Western Australia in January 2009. Two themes from the affect-infused narratives of pre- and post-mine community members are outlined. The first, which challenges constructions of the closure as a purely industrial and economic concern, focuses on the intense feelings the shut-down invoked amongst participants. The second theme explores the way in which the owner of the mine, BHP Billiton, worked to suppress and regulate affective reactions to the closure and thus reveals the highly political nature of emotions.

POTASHCORP SNUBS BHP BILLITON

POTASHCORP HAS REJECTED the $40 billion acquisition offer of Australia’s BHP Billiton, and now the mining giant is taking its bid for the fertilizer company directly to shareholders. The offer “provides PotashCorp shareholders with value certainty and an immediate opportunity to realize the value of their shares in the face of volatile equity markets,” BHP Billiton’s chairman, Jacques Nasser, wrote to PotashCorp’s board. In a conference call with investors, PotashCorp CEO William J. Doyle gave a rebuttal. “We believe we are on the verge of an inflection point where potash demand is expected to return to historical trend line growth and tightened supply and improved pricing,” he said. PotashCorp’s board unanimously rejected BHP Billiton’s $130.00-per-share offer, maintaining that it “grossly undervalues” the company. The offer represents a 16% premium of its stock price on Aug. 16, the day before the offer was disclosed to the public. In mid-2008, when the fertilizer industry peaked before the ...

A continuous pilot-scale flotation rig for the systematic study of flotation variables

A pilot-scale flotation apparatus has been developed for the purpose of determining floatability parameters for an ore. It has the capability to vary many of the important flotation variables allowing them to be investigated independently. Adjustable factors include: cell size, froth depth, feed, tailings and air volumetric flow rates and reagent addition rates. The flotation rig was commissioned successfully at BHP Billiton’s Cannington mine in North-West Queensland, Australia. It was found to supply a stable feed stream with air well distributed across the cell. At the test conditions, the relative standard deviation of the calculated galena overall recovery was found to be only 1%. Such an apparatus could prove invaluable in flotation research, allowing live streams from an operating industrial flotation plant to be processed continuously. The versatility of the design and accuracy of performance allow the investigation of most major flotation variables with confidence.

Carbon dioxide and oxygen consumption during the bioleaching of a copper ore in a large isothermal column

During large-scale column tests at BHP Billiton's Johannesburg Technology Centre (JTC) on a low-grade copper ore during 2005/6, the concentrations of both oxygen and CO 2 were continuously monitored in feed and exit gas as well as at various intermediate positions over the height of the column. This paper describes results from a test run at 40 °C fed with an air stream enriched to between 1000 and 2000 ppm CO 2. Oxygen consumption very closely tracks iron and copper leaching. CO 2 is consumed rapidly from the bottom up, resulting in significant depletion midway through the column, even though an enriched feed was used. Oxidation rates decline in CO 2 depleted zones, but were not observed to cease completely. This decline is postulated to be linked to a slowly decaying population unable to regenerate itself, and a relative rate of decay in the absence of oxygen has been estimated to be around 3%/day. A comparison between O 2 and CO 2 consumption rates shows a linear correlation beyond a minimum oxidation rate. This minimum rate corresponds to a non-growth maintenance energy requirement, and the slope of the linear correlation to the growth yield. Both are functions of available CO 2 in the range 50 to 1000 ppm, with maintenance declining and yield increasing. The findings of this study imply that CO 2 supplementation in bioheaps will stimulate microbial growth and CO 2 consumption, but not necessarily increase the rate of oxygen uptake and hence leaching. Absence of CO 2 is expected to result in gradual population decline, but a degree of oxidation continues on the basis of maintenance. In tall heaps, CO 2 depletion with height is likely and may therefore result in impaired leaching in the upper zones.

Observation of shear‐wave splitting in the multicomponent node data from Atlantis field, Gulf of Mexico

ABSTRACTIn 2005, a multicomponent ocean bottom node data set was collected by BP and BHP Billiton in the Atlantis field in the Gulf of Mexico. Our results are based on data from a few sparse nodes with millions of shots that were analysed as common receiver azimuthal gathers. A first‐order look at P‐wave arrivals on a common receiver gather at a constant offset reveals variation of P‐wave arrival time as a function of azimuth indicating the presence of azimuthal anisotropy at the top few layers. This prompted us to investigate shear arrivals on the horizontal component data. After preliminary processing, including a static correction, the data were optimally rotated to radial (R) and transverse (T) components. The R component shows azimuthal variation of traveltime indicating variation of velocity with azimuth; the corresponding T component shows azimuthal variation of amplitude and phase (polarity reversal). The observed shear‐wave (S‐wave) splitting, previously observed azimuthal P‐wave velocity variation and azimuthal P‐wave amplitude variation, all indicate the occurrence of anisotropy in the shallow (just below the seafloor) subsea sediment in the area. From the radial component azimuthal gather, we analysed the PP‐ and PS‐wave amplitude variation for the first few layers and determined corresponding anisotropy parameter and VP/VS values. Since fracture at this depth is not likely to occur, we attribute the observed azimuthal anisotropy to the presence of microcracks and grain boundary orientation due to stress. The evidence of anisotropy is ubiquitous in this data set and thus it argues strongly in favour of considering anisotropy in depth imaging for obtaining realistic subsurface images, at the least.

Multiple criteria programming models for VIP E-Mail behavior analysis

Excessive lose of customer account is becoming a major headache for VIP E-Mail hosting companies. Analysis of what kind of customer is more prone to lose and finding the appropriate measures to sustain those customers has become urgent needs. Recently, classification models based on mathematical programming have been widely used in business intelligence. The purpose of this paper is to propose several multiple criteria programming methods for classification and apply these methods to VIP E-Mail behavior classification. We first introduce a model for a generalized multiple criteria programming based classification method, specifically four particular forms, and then we use a cross-validation method to test the stability and accuracy of multiple criteria programming methods on VIP E-Mail accounts. Finally, we compare our models with Support Vector Machine (SVM). The results show that the classification models based on mathematical programming are satisfactorily accurate and stable on a VIP E-Mail dataset. Therefore, it can be concluded that applying the proposed method on VIP E-Mail behavior analysis can provide stable and credible results. This research has been supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grants No. 60674109, No. 70621001, and No. 70871111, and BHP Billiton Co., Australia. In the process of building the multiple criteria programming classification models, the authors received much help from Professor Juliang Zhang. We express our endless gratitude to him.

An Excess of Access: An Examination of Part IIIA of the Australian Trade Practices Act

Part IIIA of the Australian Trade Practices Act defines circumstances in which a facility owner may be required to provide a third party with use of its facility. This paper examines what Part IIIA might be doing from an economic perspective and criticises 'monopoly leveraging' arguments for third-party access. It argues that the transactions costs of access are potentially significant, and can exceed any efficiency gains third-party access permits. These contentions are corroborated by reference to the long-running dispute between the Fortescue Metals Group and BHP Billiton Iron Ore over access to rail track in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.

Sustainable water use at olympic dam

The majority of water to the Olympic Dam mine and the nearby townships of Roxby Downs and Andamooka is supplied from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). There are no permanent local water sources available to Olympic Dam. The use of water from the Great Artesian Basin by Olympic Dam receives considerable attention by BHP Billiton and is extensively regulated by the Government of South Australia. Olympic Dam has robust business management systems in place to ensure the sustainable use of water from the GAB including ISO9001 and ISO14001 systems to deliver the targeted outcomes and obligations of the Olympic Dam Environmental Management and Monitoring Program. The management systems ensure that Olympic Dam retains accountability for its water demand from the GAB over the life of the mine. This accountability has delivered continuous improvement in water use efficiency driven by operating discipline, implementation of water saving projects, using water on a fit for purpose basis including substitution from non-GAB sources, and risk management to prevent and mitigate water supply disruptions to Olympic Dam and Roxby Downs. Since the establishment of Olympic Dam, BHP Billiton has funded a reduction in GAB water flow from bores, previously going to waste, that is greater than the annual average flow used by Olympic Dam.

A Cluster Randomised Trial of an Internet-Based Intervention Program for Tinnitus Distress in an Industrial Setting

The effectiveness of a therapist-supported Internet intervention program for tinnitus distress in an industrial setting was evaluated using a cluster randomised design. Fifty-six Australian employees of two industrial organisations were randomly assigned, based on their work site (18 work sites from BP Australia and five from BHP Billiton), to either a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) program or an information-only control program. Participants were assessed at pre- and postprogram, measuring tinnitus distress, depression, anxiety, stress, quality of life, and occupational health. The CBT program was not found to be superior to the information program for treating tinnitus distress. A high attrition rate and small sample size limit the generalisability of the findings, and further developments of the program and assessment process are needed to enhance engagement and compliance.

Access, Property Rights and Welfare: An Examination of Part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act

Part IIIA of the Trade Practices Act provides a mechanism by which third party access can be mandated to facilities such as rail links. This paper examines what it is that Part IIIA might be doing from an economic perspective, and what that tells us about when mandated third party access might be efficient. A critique is presented of simple ‘monopoly leveraging’ arguments for third party access, and it is argued that when profit-maximising vertically integrated firms refuse to provide access, the most likely explanation is not monopoly, but rather that the transactions costs associated with access exceed any potential efficiency gains. These transactions costs are illustrated by reference to the long-running dispute between the Fortescue Metals Group Ltd ('FMG') and BHP Billiton Iron Ore ('BHPBIO') over access to BHPBIO's rail track in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The conclusion reached is that third party access regimes can cause significant welfare losses, making it important that the scope of these regimes be narrowly defined. Part IIIA is examined in the light of these conclusions and it is argued that the Part as it stands creates a risk of regulatory over-reach. Given that risk, repeal of the Part would be the simplest option; but there may be a case for retaining it, conditional on substantial reform. That reform would significantly restrict the scope the Part provides for mandating third party access.