Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

Latest release

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

Reference period
June 2024
Released
2/09/2024
  • Next Release 29/11/2024
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, September 2024
  • Next Release 28/02/2025
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, December 2024
  • Next Release 3/06/2025
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, March 2025
  • View all releases

Key statistics

  • Mineral exploration expenditure fell by 5.5%
  • Petroleum exploration expenditure fell by 16.6%
  Jun Qtr 24Mar Qtr 24 to Jun Qtr 24Jun Qtr 23 to Jun Qtr 24
  $m% change% change
Seasonally adjusted   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure991-5.5-6.9
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure314-16.628.4
     
Trend   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,011-3.0-4.6
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure3342.429.6

Mineral exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 5.5% ($57.2m) to $991.1m
  • Trend fall of 3.0% ($31.3m) to $1,011.4m

Mineral exploration, by deposit type, original series

  • Rise of 11.6% ($105.7m) to $1,015.3m 
  • Existing deposits rose 12.6% ($79.7m) to $712.0m
  • New deposits rose 9.4% ($26.0m) to $303.3m

Mineral exploration, by mineral type, original series

  • Iron ore recorded the largest rise (up 29.9%, $45.0m) to $195.3m
  • Selected Base Metals also rose (up 17.4%, $34.5m) to $233.0m

(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 4.2% (96.7km) to 2,418.7km
  • Trend fall of 2.8% (68.5km) to 2,370.5km

Metres drilled, original series

  • Rise of 30.5% (606.3km) to 2,591.3km
  • Existing deposits rose 29.5% (440.3km) to 1,934.7km
  • New deposits rose 33.8% (166.0km) to 656.6km

Petroleum exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 16.6% ($62.5m) to $314.0m
  • Trend rise of 2.4% ($7.8m) to $333.7m

Onshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 6.5% ($15.1m) to $217.1m
  • Trend rise of 6.7% ($14.2m) to $225.6m

Offshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 32.8% ($47.4m) to $96.9m
  • Trend fall of 5.2% ($5.9m) to $108.6m

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

Data Explorer datasets

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Help for: Data Explorer Datasets

Mineral Exploration - Quarterly mineral exploration expenditure and metres drilled

Petroleum Exploration - Quarterly petroleum expenditure

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Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 8412.0.

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