The Burlington Northern Mineral Exploration Program

Abstract

The Burlington Northern (BN) railroad had extensive land holdings in the Northern Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s and 1980s. These lands were managed to provide revenue for the company and one of the ways this occurred was to develop the mineral resources. The company maintained a small mineral exploration program which was designed to find and bring a prospect up to the development stage. The large land position gave the company (i.e., BN) a different perspective than that of the typical exploration company. BN preferred to lease the prospect to a larger mining company that had the resources and capability to develop and operate a mine and was happy to collect a royalty. This gave BN a different corporate culture than that of a mineral or geothermal exploration company. The perspective and corporate culture of BN was similar to that of other railroads and large timber companies that had large land holdings.