Discovered in 1990, Cannington's major metal deposit shared similarities with the Broken Hill deposit that saw BHP's creation in the 1880s. BHP Minerals developed Cannington as an underground mine. It was commissioned seven years after the discovery of the ore body.

In the late 1990s, BHP Minerals began operating the world's largest and lowest cost at the time single silver and lead mine. The mine's planned annual throughput was 1.5 million tons of ore, which would produce 265,000 tons of lead concentrate, 110,000 tons of zinc concentrate and 750 tons of silver.

A Fluor subsidiary worked on design and procurement of equipment for primary crushing, autogenous grinding, differential flotation and tailings disposal, together with the regrind, leaching, dewatering, handling and transport of concentrates. Transport was by road train to a rail loading facility at Yurbi, about 15 kilometers east of Cloncurry, and by rail to a modern mineral concentrate handling facility at Townsville.