Research Paper on:
The Power of BHP Billiton in the Supply Chain

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Proprietary Company Ltd and Billiton. The two firms were already major commercial interests and in merging they were able to consolidate already strong positions. Operating in the resources industries, dealing  with primary commodities, such as base metals, iron ore, diamonds, aluminium and steel the firm tends to be upstream in most supply chains and size as well as scope has  given the firm a great deal of market power. To appreciate the potential market power and level of influence that the firm is able to exert or leverage as a  major supplier the firm itself, including size, strategy and attitude of management needs to be examined. Prior to the merger Broken Hill Proprietary Company Ltd (BHP) was known as  the Big Australian (Imhof, 1996). The firm, which had been started in 1885, was named after some of the initial operations; silver mining and lead mining at Broken Hill located  in New South Wales. The firm diversified into the manufacturing of steel in 1915 and the focus of production shifted. The firm pioneered new ways of removing metals from the  sulphide ores increased its efficiency (BHP Billiton, 2011). In the 1960s the firm moved into the petroleum industry, making discoveries in the Bass Strait. The firm was becoming increasingly  diversified, and investments were being made in a range of different areas, including copper mining in Chile, Canada and Papua New Guinea. The latter of these investments, the copper mine  at Ok Tedi, located on Mount Fubilan in Papua New Guinea, was problematic with the firm sued successfully by the local inhabitants for environmental damage (Imhof, 1996). It  may be argued that it was at this point there is an outward indication of the growing power of the firm as they sought to exert power as a local