Base Metals
BHP Billiton is one of the world's top producers of copper, silver, lead and uranium, and a leading producer of zinc. We provide base metal concentrates to custom smelters and copper cathodes to rod and brass mills and casting plants and uranium oxide to power utilities. We aim to become the pre-eminent supplier in base metals through capacity expansions, reliable supply and innovative solutions.
We have an excellent portfolio of large, low-cost mining operations with substantial growth opportunities. We have a number of expansion opportunities — both greenfield (new sites) and brownfield (developments on existing sites) — which are sufficient to allow us to expand copper production significantly through various projects.
Beyond conventional mine development, we are also rigorously pursuing advanced bioleaching technology, which has the potential to achieve significant reductions in the cost of producing base metals.
Products
We have five primary products:
- Copper concentrates
- Copper cathodes
- Lead concentrates
- Zinc concentrates
- Uranium oxide
We also produce major quantities of silver and significant amounts of gold within the base metals concentrates as well as gold and silver bullion at our Olympic Dam operation. Our Cannington mine in Australia is one of the largest and lowest cost producers of silver in the world.
Operations
We currently have seven primary operations (brackets indicate percentage of ownership):
- Antamina, Peru (33.75 per cent) — copper and zinc concentrates
- Cannington, Australia (100 per cent) — lead and zinc concentrates with high silver content
- Cerro Colorado, Chile (100 per cent) — copper cathodes
- Escondida, Chile (57.5 per cent) — copper concentrates and cathodes
- Olympic Dam, Australia (100 per cent) — copper cathodes, uranium oxide, gold and silver bullion. Also see Olympic Dam Expansion Project
- Spence, Chile (100 per cent) — copper cathodes
- Pinto Valley, US (100 per cent) — copper concentrates
Projects
Yeerlirrie Project
BHP Billiton is developing plans to mine uranium from the Yeelirrie deposit, about 500 kilometres north of Kalgoorlie and 60 kilometres west of its Mount Keith Nickel Operations. Yeelirrie is the second largest known uranium deposit in Australia not yet in production. The Yeelirrie Project is seeking to establish an open-cut uranium ore mine and ore processing plant with a mining rate that would ramp up over time to produce about 5,000 tonnes per annum of uranium oxide concentrate. Read more about our project plans.
- Yeelirrie Project - Overview (PDF 1.1MB)
- Yeelirrie Project - Mining and Processing (PDF 2.5MB)
- Yeelirrie Project - Health and Safety (PDF 3.1MB)
- Yeelirrie Project - Handling and Transport (PDF 2.8MB)
- Yeelirrie Project - Community Reference Group established (PDF 2.9MB)
- Yeelirrie Project - Project Update October 2009 (PDF 106kb)
Marketing
For information about our Base Metals marketing activities, see Base Metals in Product Enquiries.
