The Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) was incorporated in 1895, operating the mine at Broken Hill in western New South Wales. In 1915, the company ventured into steel manufacture, its operations mainly based at Newcastle, New South Wales. The company grew to become Australia's largest.

The company began petroleum exploration in the 1960s with discoveries in Bass Strait, an activity which became an increasing focus as their manufacturing operations began to become less profitable with the opening of the Australian economy. They began to diversify offshore in a variety of projects. One infamous project was the Ok Tedi copper mine in Papua New Guinea, where the company was successfully sued by the indigenous inhabitants because of the environmental damage caused by the mine operations.

The inefficiencies of what was, by global standards, a small steel operation in Newcastle finally caught up with the company and Newcastle operations were slowly wound down in the 1990s, leaving Port Kembla as their only iron smelter. The 'long products' side of the steel business was spun off to form One Steel in 2000.

In 2001, BHP merged with the Billiton mining company to form BHP Billiton, now one of the largest mining companies in the world. The 'flat products' side of steel business was spun off to form BHP Steel in 2002, as part of the merger. BHP Steel itself was renamed to BlueScope Steel in late 2003.