Australian Mineral Exploration Trends and Expenditure 2024

30% ($1.2 billion) of Australia's mineral exploration spend in 2024 was on gold, according to Geoscience Australia's annual review. Overall exploration expenditure declined by 7% compared to 2023, with a 16% decline in greenfields areas. The report draws on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and company reporting to reveal exploration trends, activities, and discoveries.

Use Cases

• Analyze commodity-specific exploration expenditure trends based on reported spending figures.
• Track the relationship between exploration investment and new resource discoveries based on the count of maiden resources.
• Compare greenfields and brownfields exploration activity based on reported expenditure changes.
• Study the impact of economic factors on exploration investment based on the described market conditions.

Strengths

• Provides specific expenditure figures, such as gold accounting for $1.2 billion.
• Reports year-over-year changes, such as a 7% overall decline and a 16% decline in greenfields.
• Includes a count of new discoveries, reporting 45 maiden resources announced in 2024.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect temporal bias inherent to the annual report format.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, drawing on data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and company reporting.

Collection Method

Annual assessment compiling reported data.

Time Range

2024, with comparisons to 2023.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-24 00:33:48.686008; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia