Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia

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

Reference period
December 2023
Released
4/03/2024

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

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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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