We turn on the Television, see images of vast lands in
shades of brown, the newsman tells us mining this and mining that. Should we
take their reporting as they tell it? Or should we discover for ourselves what
is happening? Are we going to make general assumptions of the whole mining
community based on individuals we know deep in our hearts are not that credible
too. It takes two to tango. A few bad eggs makes all the hatched eggs look bad.
I believe we should change that kind of thinking. We must be perceptive, base
our judgement on facts we can validate.
Hence, let me introduce you to the mining industry. Mining
is a global existence, London being known as the capital of global mining
houses such as:
- Rio Tinto Group - founded in 1873, a British-Australian metals and mining corporation with an asset of US$ 89 Billion. The company’s name was derived from the Rio Tinto, Spain which flowed red due to acid mine drainage since mining began there about 5000 years ago. Its products are iron ore, bauxite, aluminium, copper, molybdenum, gold, diamond, coal, uranium, titanium dioxide and borates. Employs around 55, 000 persons.
- BHP Biliton – an Anglo- Australian multinational mining, metals and company headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. It is a merger of Broken Hill Proprietary Company Limited (founded in 1885) and Billiton plc (founded in1860). Their products include iron ore, coal, petroleum, copper, natural gas, nickel and uranium. Their employees exceeds 65,000 persons.
- Anglo American plc – multinational mining founded in 1917 with copper, diamonds, iron ore, metallurgical coal, nickel, platinum and thermal coal as its products. It has 135,000 employees. It is the world’s largest platinum producer. It operates in Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe, North America and South America.
Mining companies can be classified based on the financial
capabilities and size. Major companies have an annual mining revenue of more
than $500 million, intermediate companies on the other hand have at least $50
million revenue to not less than $500 million while junior companies focuses
purely on mining explorations and earns not more than $50 million.
It is amazing to read
how much economic stability the mining industry can pour into a country and can
help the lives of their employees and their loved ones as well as the
communities where their extraction is located.
It was in 2007 that Extractive Industries Transparency
Initiative was introduced to countries cooperating with the World Bank in
mining industry reform. Said initiative aims to increase transparency in
transactions between governments and companies in extractive industries through
revenue and benefits monitoring between the recipient government and companies in
extractive industry.
The World Bank’s mining involvement started from 1955 by
issuing grants from International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
through the Multilateral investment guarantee agency that offers political risk
insurance. World Bank pushed for the privatization of government-owned
companies and later developments such as the Philippines 1995 Mining Act. Oops,
I guess I got carried away with these information overload. I hope your still
there reading on and on. Till the next article and it will focus on laws
related to mining.
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