Consolidated Zinc was an Australianmining company from 1905 to 1962.
The company's initial operations focused on extractingzinc frommine tailings of theBroken Hill Ore Deposit atBroken Hill, New South Wales, Australia.[1] The company was founded inMelbourne on 9 September 1905 as theZinc Corporation Limited, to exploit residual zinc concentrations with an estimated value of $12 million in the 6 million tons of mine tailings deposited from mining activities over the previous 20 years. Key figures involved in the effort includedWilliam Baillieu andWilliam Sydney Robinson.[2] Also involved was future U.S. president, but then a mining engineer working forBewick, Moreing and Company,[3]Herbert Hoover, who inspected the tailing dumps in the group's investigations prior to formation of the company.[4][5][6]Other investors in the new company wereClark & Robinson (William Clark, Lionel Robinson and Company), andArthur Terrell.[3]
They establishedconcentrating mills at Broken Hill in 1905 and 1910, and in 1906 an associatedsulphuric acid manufacturing plant whose first manager was (later Sir)H. W. Gepp.[7]
In 1911 they expanded into primary mining activities with the purchase ofBroken Hill South Blocks Ltd (colloquially "South Blocks"), constructing underground mines[4] and mining for zinc,lead,silver[8] andgold[9] in the Broken Hill area.
In 1949, Zinc Corporation merged with theImperial Smelting Corporation to become Consolidated Zinc.[9] In 1953,Haddon King became chief geologist.[10]
Over time, the company built up substantial financial resources but failed to develop suitable new mining projects. This led to amerger in 1962 with the Rio Tinto Company, a company who found itself in a complementary position of having substantial development opportunities but not enough financial resources with which to pursue them. The resulting company, known as TheRio Tinto – Zinc Corporation (RTZ), and its main subsidiary, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA), would eventually become today'sRio Tinto Group.[8]
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