There’s a barely concealed hint of danger in the Arizona desert that newcomers ignore at their peril.
An arid country, with soaring temperatures in summer and bitterly cold winds in winter, it is seared into the American psyche as the notorious scene of the 1881 shootout at the OK Corral, when Wyatt Earp survived a gunfight that left three men dead.
In more recent times, given its lack of rain, it has become famous as a massive graveyard for aircraft.
It was in this harsh land almost three decades ago that BHP set its sights on a bold copper play, snapping up Magma Copper for a surprisingly rich $3.2 billion.
The 1996 purchase was a disaster. Within three years it would cost the company its entire outlay and, along with several other poorly timed decisions that resulted in heavy write-downs, the jobs of chairman Jerry Ellis and then chief executive John Prescott.
By the turn of the century, BHP was on its knees. Commodity prices were…
