australia's identified mineral resources 2004 - Geoscience Australia

AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2004
TABLE 5. Australian mineral exploration expenditure by commodity, 2001–02 and 2002–03.
Commodity Exploration Spending Change Proportion of Australian Change
($ million) ($ million) Total Exploration Spending % points
2001–02 2002–03 2001–02 2002–03
Gold 331.3 378.4 47.1 51.7 51.7 0.0
Base Metals 132.9 142.0 9.1 20.7 19.4 -1.3
Diamond 35.4 29.8 -5.6 5.5 4.1 -1.4
Coal 50.3 77.9 27.6 7.9 10.6 2.7
Iron Ore 25.2 44.5 19.3 3.9 6.1 2.2
Mineral Sands 33.2 27.3 -5.9 5.2 3.7 -1.5
Uranium 8.8 6.9 -1.9 1.4 0.9 -0.5
Others 23.4 25.8 2.4 3.7 3.5 -0.2
After a fall in 2001–02, the combined spending on base metal (copper, lead, zinc, silver, nickel,
cobalt) exploration recovered to increase by 6.8% to $142 million. ABS data for base metals
exploration shows that spending on copper exploration fell by $1.9 million to $39.7 million in
2002–03. Zinc-lead-silver spending at $36.6 million was $1.0 million less than in 2001–02. However,
in response to the intense world-wide interest in nickel, the spending on exploration for nickel-cobalt
rose by almost 23% to $65.9 million. Because ABS is unable to publish comprehensive jurisdictionbased
data for reasons of confidentiality a meaningful review of State spending is not possible,
however, it should be noted that 82% of spending on nickel-cobalt exploration was in Western
Australia where attention was focussed on the search for nickel sulphides.
Exploration spending on coal and iron ore increased substantially in 2002–03. Coal spending rose
by almost 55% to $77.9 million, surpassing the previous high of $70.5 million recorded in 1996–97.
Iron ore exploration spending increased by 76.6% to $44.5 million which was the highest expenditure
reported in the last decade. In contrast, spending was lower on the search for diamond, mineral
sands and uranium. Mineral sands exploration retreated from the record level of 2001–02 with a
fall of 17.8% to $27.3 million which, despite the fall, was still the second highest level recorded.
Diamond exploration fell by 15.8% to $29.8 million the equal lowest level for the last decade while
uranium spending at $6.9 million was down by 21.6% to the lowest level in the decade. The share of
total spending held by gold and base metals combined was slightly lower at 71% compared to 72%
in 2001–02 and sharp reduction from the 78% held in 2000–01.
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Exploration spending rose in all jurisdictions in 2002–03 with increases ranging from 1.2% in the
Northern Territory to 36% in Victoria. Western Australia remained the main destination for exploration
with $423.6 million spent, an increase of 11.2%, and accounted for 57.8% of total exploration
spending which was slightly lower than the 59.5% recorded in 2001–02 (Fig. 3, Table 6). Although
Queensland again had the second highest expenditure, attracting $114.0 million it registered a
substantial 23% increase over 2001–02 and had 15.6% of total Australian spending. In New South
Wales, spending totalled $58.8 million which was $10.5 million (21.7%) higher than the previous year
and the Northern Territory recorded a 1.2% increase to $49.0 million. Victoria had a 36% increase in
spending to $46.1 million, the highest level since 1996–97 and had 6.3% of total spending. South
Australian spending continued the recovery started 2000–01 as it rose by 14.3% to $36.7 million.
Tasmanian spending recovered a small proportion of the substantial loss recorded last year with a
7.5% rise to $4.3 million.