MITEZ Inc was incorporated in 1994 in response to Federal and State Government schemes to form regional grouping throughout Australia of regions with common economic and social objectives and an interdependency on each other, both commercially and administratively.

At the time of the formation of MITEZ there was an opportunity to formalise the long standing co-operation between Mt. Isa and Townsville, particularly between MIM and Townsville Port.

In addition to this issue, there existed a number of development projects involving international scale mining operations with supporting infrastructure.

The WMC project at Phosphate Hill (Duchess) required natural gas as a feedstock for their fertiliser plant. The building of the Ballera to Mt. Isa gas pipeline not only provided this feedstock, but also provided the energy base for the conversion of Mica Creek coal-fired power station to gas, with both environmental and cost improvements. The WMC need for sulphuric acid also provided an incentive for MIM to develop an acid extraction plant associated with their smelting operations.

At the Townsville end, the development of the Sun Metals Zinc Refinery also had significant synergy with Mt. Isa. The zinc concentrate for Sun Metals plant was largely sourced from Mt. Isa and with Sun Metals producing some 200,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid which could be backloaded to Mt. Isa and WMC.

Other major developments were the Ernest Henry Mine, BHP Cannington and the spin-off to the MITEZ region of the $1 billion Century Mine.

To match the needs of these developments, utilities such as Ergon and Queensland Rail expended significant sums on power provision and service expansion, and QR invested in major rail upgrades to increase the line carrying capacity. Similar service upgrades have been introduced by Telstra.

In total investment in the region for the 1994-2000 period is estimated to have exceeded $5 billion.