MIM Holdings Limited was an Australian mining company created in 1970
Accessed 31 May 2013 as the parent company of

Mount Isa Mines Mount Isa Mines Limited ("MIM") operates the Mount Isa copper, lead, zinc and silver mines near Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia as part of the Glencore group of companies. For a brief period in 1980, MIM was Australia's largest company. It has ...

Limited, which operates the

Mount Isa Mount Isa ( ) is a city in the Gulf Country region of Queensland, Australia. It came into existence because of the vast mineral deposits found in the area. Mount Isa Mines (MIM) is one of the most productive single mines in world history, base ...

mines in north-west

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

. Based in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland, MIM Holdings owned and/or operated coal, gold, and base metal mines in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

and

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. It also operated

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu (from la, cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkis ...

smelters in Mount Isa, a copper refinery in

Townsville Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 180,820 as of June 2018, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland; it is unofficially considered its capital. Estimated resident population, 3 ...

(Queensland), a lead refinery at Northfleet (

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

smelters using the Imperial Smelting Process at the

National Smelting Company The National Smelting Company was a nationalised zinc smelting company in Avonmouth, England. It was established by Minister of Munitions Winston Churchill to produce mustard gas during World War I. After World War I, it was bought by private bu ...

located within

Avonmouth Docks The Avonmouth Docks are part of the Port of Bristol, in England. They are situated on the northern side of the mouth of the River Avon, opposite the Royal Portbury Dock on the southern side, where the river joins the Severn estuary, within Avo ...

(England) and

Duisburg Duisburg () is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruhr Region, Duisburg is the 5th largest city in No ...

(

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

), and a precious metals refinery in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. It also held, at some stages, cross-shareholdings in

ASARCO Asarco LLC (American Smelting and Refining Company) is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999. Its three la ...

Cominco Teck Resources Limited, known as Teck Cominco until late 2008, is a diversified natural resources company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, that is engaged in mining and mineral development, including coal for the steelmaking indust ...

and

Metallgesellschaft Metallgesellschaft AG was formerly one of Germany's largest industrial conglomerates based in Frankfurt. It had over 20,000 employees and revenues in excess of 10 billion US dollars. It had over 250 subsidiaries specializing in mining, specialty c ...

. It sold its interests in Cominco and Metallgesellschaft during the 1993–1994 Australian financial year. MIM Holdings was responsible for several significant technological advances in the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

industry, including the Isa Process tank house technology, developed at its subsidiary Copper Refineries Pty Limited in Townsville, Queensland; the

Bottom-blown oxygen converter The Bottom-blown Oxygen Converter or BBOC is a smelting furnace developed by the staff at Britannia Refined Metals Limited (“BRM”), a British subsidiary of MIM Holdings Limited (which is now part of the Glencore group of companies). The furn ...

("BBOC") developed at its lead refining subsidiary, Britannia Refined Metals, at Northfleet in England; and the

ISASMELT The ISASMELT process is an energy-efficient smelting process that was jointly developed from the 1970s to the 1990s by Mount Isa Mines (a subsidiary of MIM Holdings and now part of Glencore) and the Government of Australia’s CSIRO. It has rel ...

top-entry submerged lance smelting process, Jameson Cell flotation technology, and the IsaMill fine grinding technology, all developed at its Mount Isa Mines Limited operations in Mount Isa. MIM Holdings was taken over by

Xstrata Xstrata plc was an Anglo-Swiss multinational mining company headquartered in Zug, Switzerland and with its registered office in London, United Kingdom. It was a major producer of coal (and the world's largest exporter of thermal coal), copper, ...

for a total of US$2.96 billion (A$4.93 billion), including assumed debt, in 2003, and delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange on 30 June 2003. At that time, MIM Holdings was one of the world's biggest coal exporters. On 2 May 2013, Xstrata merged with Glencore to form

Glencore Xstrata Glencore plc is a Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company with headquarters in Baar, Switzerland. Glencore's oil and gas head office is in London and its registered office is in Saint Helier, Jersey. The current company was c ...

plc.Announcement of Glencore-Xstrata merger completion.
Accessed 8 May 2013.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Non-renewable resource companies established in 1970 Companies based in Queensland Mount Isa Zinc smelters Non-renewable resource companies disestablished in 2003 2003 mergers and acquisitions Mining companies of Australia Lead companies Zinc companies Coal companies of Australia Gold mining companies of Australia Metal companies of Australia Australian companies disestablished in 2003 Australian companies established in 1970