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Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

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

Reference period
March 2024
Released
4/06/2024

Key statistics

  • Mineral exploration expenditure fell by 2.2%
  • Petroleum exploration expenditure rose by 48.3%
  Mar Qtr 24Dec Qtr 23 to Mar Qtr 24Mar Qtr 23 to Mar Qtr 24
  $m% change% change
Seasonally adjusted   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,058-2.22.0
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure37948.361.5
     
Trend   
 Mineral Exploration Expenditure1,070-0.53.3
 Petroleum Exploration Expenditure34410.348.3

Mineral exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 2.2% ($23.8m) to $1,058.1m
  • Trend fall of 0.5% ($4.9m) to $1,070.2m

Mineral exploration, by deposit type, original series

  • Fall of 18.3% ($204.4m) to $910.4m 
  • Existing deposits fell 16.0% ($120.5m) to $631.8m
  • New deposits fell 23.1% ($83.9m) to $278.6m

Mineral exploration, by mineral type, original series

  • Selected Base Metals recorded the largest fall (down 27.3%, $74.4m) to $198.5m
  • Other Minerals also fell (down 24.2%, $55.7m) to $174.6m

(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 fall of 10.8% (282.6km) to 2,339.3km
  • Trend fall of 4.5% (113.2km) to 2,425.7km

Metres drilled, original series

  • Fall of 24.5% (649.5km) to 1,999.3km
  • New deposits fell 33.4% (248.9km) to 496.4km
  • Existing deposits fell 21.1% (400.7km) to 1,502.8km

Petroleum exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 48.3% ($123.6m) to $379.3m
  • Trend rise of 10.3% ($32.1m) to $344.4m

Onshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 34.9% ($61.4m) to $237.1m
  • Trend rise of 13.5% ($26.1m) to $219.3m

Offshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 77.9% ($62.3m) to $142.3m
  • Trend rise of 4.5% ($5.4m) to $124.5m

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Time series spreadsheets

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Data Explorer datasets

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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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