BROKEN HILL PROPRIETARY COMPANY LIMITED

(BHP) largest corporation in Australia, registered in Victoria on Aug. 13, 1885, and engaged today primarily in the production of steel, minerals, and oil and gas. Current headquarters are in Melbourne. The company took its name from Broken Hill (q.v.), a city along a range in New South Wales where a rich silver, lead, and zinc lode was discovered in 1883. In the late 1880s and '90s, Broken Hill had the richest silver mine in the world, and, though the returns on various minerals gradually decreased, BHP's mines there did not close until 1939. In 1900 BHP began its transition to steel, opening iron mines near Spencer Gulf in that year, later experimenting with smelting, and finally in 1915 opening the giant Newcastle Iron and Steel Works in New South Wales. Other collieries and steelworks (such as at Port Kembla, Whyalla, and Kwinana) were developed or purchased over the years so that BHP becameand remainsthe enterprise responsible for virtually all the iron and steel production in Australia. To transport the coal, limestone, iron, dolomite, manganese, and other elements of steelmaking, as well as the finished products, BHP operates a huge private fleet, one of the world's largest. BHP's search for petroleum and gas began in 1954, but active drilling and production began only after 1964, the year that BHP entered into formal collaboration with Esso Exploration Australia, Inc., a subsidiary of Exxon (then called Standard Oil of New Jersey). BHP also has subsidiaries engaged in various other activities, such as wire production, shipbuilding, equipment manufacture, and the production of cement, bricks, and related materials. In 1983 the company acquired a controlling interest in Utah International Inc., a major producer of metallurgical coal in Australia, with holdings in copper, iron ore, and steam coal in various countries. Almost all BHP industrial sites are in Australia, with only a few sites in New Zealand, New Guinea, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.