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 mines in world history, based on co ...

mines in north-west

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

. Based in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

, 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 country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and

Argentina Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

. It also operated

lead Lead () is a chemical element; it has Chemical symbol, symbol Pb (from Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a Heavy metal (elements), heavy metal that is density, denser than most common materials. Lead is Mohs scale, soft and Ductility, malleabl ...

and

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) 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 pinkish-orang ...

smelters in Mount Isa, a copper refinery in

Townsville The City of Townsville is a city on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, Australia. With a population of 201,313 as of 2024, it is the largest settlement in North Queensland and Northern Australia (specifically, the parts of Australia north of ...

(Queensland), a lead refinery at

Northfleet Northfleet is a town in the borough of Gravesham in Kent, England. It is located immediately west of Gravesend, and on the border with the Borough of Dartford. Northfleet has its own railway station on the North Kent Line, just east of Ebbsf ...

(

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

zinc Zinc is a chemical element; it has symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It 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 periodic tabl ...

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 bus ...

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, Bristol, River Avon, opposite the Royal Portbury Dock on the southern side, where the river joins the River S ...

(England) and

Duisburg Duisburg (; , ) is a city in the Ruhr metropolitan area of the western States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Lying on the confluence of the Rhine (Lower Rhine) and the Ruhr (river), Ruhr rivers in the center of the Rhine-Ruh ...

(

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

), and a precious metals refinery in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

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

ASARCO ASARCO (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 largest ...

Cominco The Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada Limited, and from 1966 onwards Cominco Ltd., was a Canadian mining company that existed from 1906 to 2001. Cominco was created by the Canadian Pacific Railway through the consolidation of a num ...

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 Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...

industry, including the Isa Process tank house technology, developed at its subsidiary Copper Refineries Pty Limited in Townsville, Queensland; the Bottom-blown oxygen converter ("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 relat ...

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 corporation, 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 o ...

for a total of US$2.96 billion (A$4.93 billion), including assumed debt, in 2003, and delisted from the

Australian Stock Exchange Australian Securities Exchange Ltd (ASX) is an Australian public company that operates Australia's primary securities exchange, the Australian Securities Exchange (sometimes referred to outside of Australia as, or confused within Australia as, ...

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 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