Oil Production

Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ld
8 November 1999





                 FIRST OIL FROM LAMINARIA/CORALLINA OIL FIELD                 


The Broken Hill Proprietary Co Ltd announced that initial oil production has
commenced from the Laminaria and Corallina oilfields via the floating
production storage and offloading facility 'Northern Endeavour'.

Operated by Woodside Energy Ltd, the 'Northern Endeavour' is located 550 km
west-north west of Darwin. Initial production commenced on 7th November and is
expected  to increase to 140,000 barrels per day (gross) over the next few
weeks. 

The Corallina oil field is located in Production Licence AC/L5 with equity
interests : Woodside Energy Ltd 50% (operator), BHP Petroleum (North West
Shelf) Pty Ltd 25% and Shell Development (Australia) Proprietary Limited 25%.

The Laminaria oilfield is located in AC/L5 and Production Licence WA 18-L 
which includes the Laminaria East extension ( BHP 100% interest). The equity
interests in the field, post unitisation are Woodside 44.925%, BHP 32.6125%
and Shell 22.4625%.

The combined proven reserves for the Laminaria and Corallina fields are 144
million barrels gross and the overall BHP share is 43 million barrels. BHP
will market its equity share of oil production.

BHP's involvement in the Laminaria/Corallina oil field development represents
one of a number of new or incremental oil production projects offshore Western
Australia.  The Buffalo oil field is currently being developed with production
expected to commence in late December 1999 at a peak rate of 40,000 barrels
per day gross (BHP 50%), while an infield and nearfield drilling programme is
planned for the Griffin field, designed to enhance short term production from
this asset (BHP 45%). Recent production from Griffin has averaged around
45,000 barrels per day gross. 


For further clarification:

Media inquiries                        Investment  inquiries 
              
Dr Malcolm Garratt                     Dr Robert Porter
Ph:     [phone]                Ph:    [phone]
Mobile: [phone]                Mobile [phone]