Gold - Top explored commodity in 2016
This article is an extract of the Corporate Exploration Strategies report series which examines mining exploration budgets trend by commodity.
By Robert Anders and Sean DeCoff | 19 January 2017
Although base metals prices strengthened in 2016, gold remained the top-explored commodity during the year. Due to the overall decline in exploration budgets, gold’s share of the global budget surpassed its 2012 share of 47%, and accounted for 48% in 2016.
The $2.11 billion allocated by 591 companies to base metals exploration was a drop of $804 million, or 28%, from 2015. The base metals share of the global budget was also down by 2.5%.
A total of 441 companies budgeted $1.51 billion for copper, down from $2.08 billion by 574 companies in 2015, and 125 companies budgeted $226 million for primary or secondary nickel exploration, which was down from $366 million budgeted by 173 companies in 2015. Nickel’s share of global base metals allocations fell to 11%, the metal’s smallest share in at least 20 years. Zinc allocations were down to $380 million from their recent peak of $865 million in 2012.
Diamond exploration allocations fell again in 2016, to $290 million from $367 million in 2015, but diamonds’ share of the global budget remained at 4.2% year on year. Regionally, Canada became the top destination for diamond exploration, surpassing Africa for the first time since 2003.
Platinum group metals’ (PGM) share of the global budget was down to 1% from 1.4% in 2015; 33 companies allocated $74 million — a 15-year low.
