Barrick Gold Corporation, the largest pure gold mining company in the world, is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. It has four regional business units (RBU's) located in Australia, Africa, North America, and South America. Barrick is currently undertaking mining and exploration projects in Papua New Guinea, the United States, Canada, Australia, Peru, Chile, Russia, South Africa, Argentina, and Tanzania. On January 20, 2006, Barrick acquired a majority share of Placer Dome.
Since its privatization in the 1990s, Spain’s Repsol YPF has become one of the world’s largest integrated oil companies. While retaining its dominant position in its home country, Repsol made a major push into South America, becoming the largest foreign energy player on that continent. The YPF part of its name reflects a major acquisition in Argentina.
Sterlite Industries (India) Limited and its consolidated subsidiaries (the “Company” or “Sterlite”) are engaged in the businesses of mining, smelting, and refining non-ferrous metals in India and Australia. SIIL is a majority-owned subsidiary of Twin Star Holdings Limited (“Twin Star”), which is in turn a wholly owned subsidiary of Vedanta Resources plc (“Vedanta”), a public limited company incorporated in the United Kingdom and listed on the London Stock Exchange. Twin Star held 57 percent of SIIL’s equity as of Sept. 30, 2008.
Over the past decade, Brazil-based Vale has evolved from a large but little known producer of iron ore to one of the world’s mining leviathans—the only one based in the global south. The major factor in its growth was the US$19 billion acquisition of Canada’s big nickel producer Inco in 2006. It also made an aborted effort to acquire the Swiss mining giant Xstrata. Originally a government-owned firm called Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (literally, “sweet river valley company"), Vale was privatized in 1997.
