BHP Billiton President Marketing, Arnoud Balhuizen today outlined how the Company’s Marketing organisation is uniquely positioned to create value for shareholders by building on BHP Billiton’s scale, diversification and high quality products.

Mr Balhuizen highlighted how the Marketing organisation:

• Connects the Company’s resources to market, using its technical and commercial expertise to ensure products are placed with the right customers for the best price.
• Increases efficiency across the supply chain, maximising the returns from existing infrastructure investments.
• Provides deep economic and commodity market insight to guide the Company’s strategic investment decisions.
• Improves productivity across the portfolio by using its centralised model to help rapidly replicate best practice.

Mr Balhuizen said: “Our Marketing organisation creates substantial value for BHP Billiton shareholders by linking our operations and our customers. Singapore is an important world economic and trading centre, offering access to a highly skilled marketing workforce. Proximity to our key Asian customers, who account for nearly seventy per cent of BHP Billiton’s revenue, also enables us to gain on the ground market insight. 

“We have helped transform markets by leading the move away from benchmark pricing and supporting the development of transparent price indices.  We remain focused on minimising our cost base through the effective management of working capital and will continue to support productivity improvements in the rest of BHP Billiton.”

For more information, see the Presentation or our News Release.