australia's identified mineral resources 2004 - Geoscience Australia

AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2004
Expenditure
Mineral exploration expenditure for a range of commodities is collected quarterly by ABS. The
following discussion is based on the survey data for 2002–03 (year ended 30 June 2003) and the first
two quarters of 2003–04. Differentiation of exploration spending into commodity groups prior to 1980
is based largely on a breakdown of ABS totals by Geoscience Australia.
Australian mineral exploration expenditure rose by 11.4% to $732.6 million in 2002–03 according to
the ABS. This was the highest financial year current dollar amount since 1998–99. Spending for
calendar year 2003, based on the sum of the ABS four quarterly figures, rose by just over $57 million
to $735.3 million.
Gold was again the principal commodity sought and its share of total exploration remained steady
at 51.7% in 2002–03. While retaining its dominant position, exploration expenditure on gold rose
by $47.1 million to $378.4 million (Fig. 2, Table 5) its highest level since 1998–99. Although Western
Australia remained dominant in the search for gold its share of spending fell slightly to 70%
($265.6 million). For reasons of confidentiality of data collected for either Victoria or the Northern
Territory, or both, ABS has not published exploration expenditures on individual commodities for
those jurisdictions, however aggregate spending in the two was $59 million (15.6% of total spending).
In other States, spending on gold was: Queensland $24.3 million (6.4%), New South Wales
$19.9 million (5.3%), South Australia $8.3 million (2.2%) and Tasmania $1.4 million (0.3%).
FIGURE 2. Australian mineral exploration expenditure by commodity since 1992–93
(Source: ABS).
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