Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

Latest release

Quarterly statistics on mineral and petroleum exploration expenditure by private organisations in Australia

Reference period
December 2023
Released
4/03/2024
  • Next Release 4/06/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, March 2024
  • Next Release 2/09/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, June 2024
  • Next Release 2/12/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, September 2024
  • View all releases

Key statistics

  • Mineral exploration expenditure rose by 0.9%
  • Petroleum exploration expenditure fell by 19.8%
  Dec Qtr 23Sep Qtr 23 to Dec Qtr 23Dec Qtr 22 to Dec Qtr 23
  $m% change% change
Seasonally adjusted   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,0930.97.3
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure258-19.820.9
     
Trend   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,0931.46.7
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure2852.531.8

Mineral exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 0.9% ($9.6m) to $1,092.8m
  • Trend rise of 1.4% ($15.1m) to $1,093.4m

Mineral exploration, by deposit type, original series

  • Fall of 3.1% ($35.9m) to $1,124.0m 
  • Existing deposits fell 2.5% ($19.4m) to $770.3m
  • New deposits fell 4.4% ($16.4m) to $353.8m

Mineral exploration, by mineral type, original series

  • Other Minerals recorded the largest rise (up 2.9%, $6.1m) to $216.1m
  • Iron Ore recorded the largest fall (down 13.2%, $25.9m) to $170.6m

(a) Selected Base Metals contains Copper, Silver, Lead & Zinc, and Nickel & Cobalt

(b) All Others contains Mineral Sands, Uranium, Diamonds and Other Minerals

Metres drilled, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 1.4% (35.9km) to 2,663.4km
  • Trend fall of 1.4% (37.9km) to 2,637.7km

Metres drilled, original series

  • Fall of 5.0% (140.8km) to 2,662.3km
  • New deposits fell 13.6% (111.6km) to 710.2km
  • Existing deposits fell 1.5% (29.1km) to 1,952.2km

Petroleum exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 19.8% ($63.9m) to $258.1m
  • Trend rise of 2.5% ($7.0m) to $285.4m

Onshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 1.7% ($3.1m) to $174.3m
  • Trend rise of 4.4% ($7.4m) to $176.9m

Offshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 42.1% ($60.9m) to $83.8m
  • Trend fall of 0.6% ($0.7m) to $108.3m

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

Caution: Data in Data Explorer is currently released after the 11:30am release on the ABS website. Please check the time period when using Data Explorer.

Help for: Data Explorer Datasets

Mineral Exploration - Quarterly mineral exploration expenditure and metres drilled

Petroleum Exploration - Quarterly petroleum expenditure

Enquiries

For enquiries about these and related statistics, contact the Customer Assistance Service via the ABS website Contact Us page. The ABS Privacy Policy outlines how the ABS will handle any personal information that you provide to us.

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8412.0.

Back to top of the page