Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

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

Reference period
September 2020
Released
30/11/2020

Mineral exploration

Total expenditure

  • Rise of 6.1% (+$40.2m) to $702.1m.

Mineral exploration, original series

  • Rise of 9.0% (+$61.6m) to $744.9m 
  • Existing deposits rose 7.3%(+$33.1m)
  • New deposits rose 12.4% (+$28.5m)
  • Gold exploration recorded the largest rise (up 17.0%, +$51.7m)

Metres drilled

  • Rise of 14.6%

Metres Drilled, original series

  • Rise of 18.8%
  • New deposits rose 23.3%
  • Existing deposits rose 16.5%.

Petroleum exploration

Total expenditure

  • Rise of 4.0% (+$8.4m) to $220.2m 
  • All other areas rose 26.5% (+$25.9m) 
  • Production lease areas fell 15.3% (-$17.5m).

Onshore

  • Rose 5.9% (+$8.6m) to $155.4m 
  • Onshore drilling expenditure fell 4.7% (-$4.3m)
  • Other onshore expenditure rose 23.2% (+$12.9m)

Offshore

  • Fell 0.3% (-$0.2m) to $64.8m
  • Drilling expenditure fell 33.3% (-$0.9m)
  • Other offshore expenditure rose 1.1% ($0.7m).

  

​​​​​​​Suspension of trend series

The trend series attempts to measure underlying behaviour in exploration expenditure and metres drilled. Due to Covid-19, in the short term this measurement will be significantly affected by changes to regular patterns. If the trend estimates in this publication were to be calculated without fully accounting for this irregular event, they would likely provide a misleading view of underlying exploration expenditure and metres drilled.

It may be some time before the underlying trend in exploration expenditure and metres drilled can be accurately estimated. The exploration expenditure and metres drilled trend series has therefore been suspended from March quarter 2020 onwards. The trend series will be reinstated when more certainty emerges in the underlying trend.

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Data downloads

Table 1. Private exploration, actual and expected expenditure

Table 2. Mineral exploration, (other than for petroleum) - expenditure and metres drilled

Table 3b. Mineral exploration, (other than for petroleum) - expenditure by type of deposit

Table 4. Mineral exploration, (other than for petroleum) - expenditure by state and territory

Table 5. Mineral exploration, (other than for petroleum) - expenditure by mineral sought

Table 6a. Petroleum exploration, expenditure by onshore and offshore

Table 6b. Petroleum exploration, expenditure by type of lease

Table 7. Petroleum exploration, expenditure by state and territory

All data cubes

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8412.0.

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