The usual suspects have planted their flags along the dusty byways of the Permian Basin, declaring where they’ve staked claims. There are names like Royal Dutch Shell, Anadarko Petroleum, Pioneer Natural Resources. And, on signs fronting a barbed-wire fence, BHP Billiton.
For the world’s largest mining company, the heart of the US shale boom in West Texas might seem to be strange territory, a very long way from the iron-ore deposits of Australia or the copper mines of Chile’s Atacama desert.
