australia's identified mineral resources 2005 - Geoscience Australia

AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005
While gold remained the predominant target in calendar year 2004 its share of total spending fell
below 50%. Although gold received $414 million in the year, an increase of $40.3 million its share
of total spending fell to 45% (Table 5). The base metal group increased its share of total spending
to 22.5% – $207.4 million, an increase of $72.7 million.
TABLE 5. Australian mineral exploration spending by commodity 2003 and 2004
(Source ABS).
Commodity Exploration Spending Change Proportion of Australian Change
($ million) ($ million) Total Exploration Spending % points
2003 2004 2003 2004
Gold 373.7 414.0 40.3 50.4 45.0 -5.4
Copper 34.5 55.8 21.3 4.7 6.1 1.4
Zinc, lead, silver 29.7 33.4 3.7 4.0 3.6 -0.4
Nickel, cobalt 70.5 118.2 47.7 9.5 12.8 3.3
Base Metals 134.7 207.4 72.7 18.2 22.5 4.4
Diamond 27.6 25.4 -2.2 3.7 2.8 -1.0
Coal 84.7 96.9 12.2 11.4 10.5 -0.9
Iron Ore 52.1 97.9 45.8 7.0 10.6 3.6
Mineral Sands 26.3 24.7 -1.6 3.5 2.7 -0.9
Uranium 8.9 14.8 5.9 1.2 1.6 0.4
Others 28.5 38.4 9.9 3.7 3.5 -0.2
This growth is uneven across the base metals with nickel being the major contributor as spending
rose by $47.7 million (68%) to $118.2 million, 12.8% of total spending. Copper spending rose by
$21.3 million (61%) to $55.8 million, 6.1% of total spending. In contrast exploration for zinc, lead,
silver rose by only $3.7 million (12%) but its share of national spending fell slightly. Iron ore
exploration rose by $45.8 million to $97.9 million and its share of total spending increased by
nearly 50% to 10.6%.
In contrast to the financial year results, all States/Northern Territory recorded increases in calendar
year 2004. Western Australia remained dominant with and increase of $107 million in 2004 to
$539.9 million which was 58.6% of Australian spending virtually the same share as in 2003 (Table 6).
Queensland and South Australia both recorded strong dollar increases in spending but these only
increased their share of national spending by around 1 percentage point.
TABLE 6. Australian mineral exploration spending by State 2003 and 2004 (Source: ABS).
State Exploration Spending Change Proportion of Australian Change
($ million) ($ million) Total Exploration Spending % points
2003 2004 2003 2004
Western Australia 432.9 539.9 107.0 58.4 58.6 0.3
Queensland 116.4 154.1 37.7 15.7 16.7 1.0
New South Wales 54.9 59.7 4.8 7.4 6.5 -0.9
Northern Territory 41.5 49.7 8.2 5.6 5.4 -0.2
Victoria 50.1 52.4 2.3 6.8 5.7 -1.1
South Australia 35.9 55.5 19.6 4.8 6.0 1.2
Tasmania 4.4 8.2 3.8 0.6 0.9 0.3
81