Australia leads world in grassroots exploration

By Christopher Galbraith | 08 February 2017

Australia's exploration budget allocations totaled US$897 million in 2016, a drop of US$171 million from the previous year. While the 16% decline was not as drastic as the decline in the global budget, the Australia total nevertheless represented a 10-year low. The number of companies exploring in Australia also hit a low at 408 in 2016, compared with 450 in 2015.

The top three budgets for Australia were all by gold miners. Johannesburg-based Gold Fields Ltd. had the largest with US$64.5 million — down only 4% from 2015 and mainly focused on minesite gold exploration. In addition to increasing resources in its currently owned orebodies, the company is developing early stage generative targets at and around its mines in Western Australia.
Fellow South African miner AngloGold Ashanti had the second-largest budget in 2016. The US$41.5 million allocation represented a 32% increase over 2015 and was primarily focused on resource growth at the 70%-owned Tropicana mine in Western Australia, where AngloGold is also developing new targets. Domestic gold miner Northern Star Resources had the third-largest budget, with US$36.7 million for late-stage and minesite exploration.


Australia mining exploration budgets 2016

Exploration budgets may be down overall in Australia, but the decline is far from uniform across all targets. Australia is the world’s second-largest gold-producing country, and its exploration allocations imply that the country has no intention of falling behind. Its US$510 million gold allocation in 2016 was the largest of any country and was unchanged from 2015, pushing the yellow metal to 57% of Australia’s total budget. Copper budgets followed with US$146 million — the third largest for copper among the countries — while other targets followed close behind with US$102 million, also the largest among the countries.


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