Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

Latest release

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

Reference period
September 2024
Released
29/11/2024
  • Next Release 28/02/2025
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, December 2024
  • Next Release 3/06/2025
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, March 2025
  • Next Release 1/09/2025
    Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia, June 2025
  • View all releases

Key statistics

  • Mineral exploration expenditure fell by 4.0%
  • Petroleum exploration expenditure fell by 1.9%
Mineral and petroleum exploration expenditure
 Sep Qtr 24
($m)
Jun Qtr 24 to Sep Qtr 24
(% change)
Sep Qtr 23 to Sep Qtr 24
(% change)
Seasonally adjusted 
 Mineral exploration expenditure958-4.0-11.8
 Petroleum exploration expenditure316-1.9-4.5
Trend 
 Mineral exploration expenditure966-3.6-10.5
 Petroleum exploration expenditure3330.216.2

Mineral exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 4.0% ($39.7m) to $958.0m
  • Trend fall of 3.6% ($36.2m) to $966.4m

Mineral exploration, by deposit type, original series

  • Fall of 0.5% ($4.7m) to $1,025.7m 
  • New deposits fell 8.3% ($25.3m) to $280.3m
  • Existing deposits rose 2.9% ($20.7m) to $745.4m

Mineral exploration, by mineral type, original series

  • Other Minerals recorded the largest fall (down 11.8%, $21.9m) to $164.0m
  • Selected Base Metals also fell (down 5.4%, $12.6m) to $218.7m

(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 0.6% (15.6km) to 2,460.5km
  • Trend was relatively unchanged (up 1.2km) to 2,420.1km

Metres drilled, original series

  • Rise of 1.0% (26.3km) to 2,639.2km
  • New deposits rose 6.0% (39.1km) to 695.2km
  • Existing deposits fell 0.7% (12.9km) to 1,943.9km

Petroleum exploration

Total expenditure, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 1.9% ($6.2m) to $315.6m
  • Trend rise of 0.2% ($0.5m) to $332.7m

Onshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted fall of 16.1% ($35.8m) to $187.0m
  • Trend fall of 3.1% ($6.7m) to $207.7m

Offshore, seasonally adjusted and trend

  • Seasonally adjusted rise of 30.0% ($29.7m) to $128.7m
  • Trend rise of 5.5% ($6.5m) to $124.3m

Data downloads

Time series spreadsheets

Data files

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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