We’ve barely scratched the surface
Kim Wainwright, Queensland Exploration Council Optimism is set to continue among Queensland’s minerals and energy explorers. That’s the headline result from the ninth annual QEC Exploration Scorecard launched in December 2019.
Over the past three years, confirmation of Queensland’s reputation as a worldclass resources jurisdiction combined with more buoyant commodity prices has driven exploration activity.
The scorecard analyses the critical drivers of exploration activity:
In addition, there is strengthening interest in Queensland’s potential to host rare earths, critical and strategic metals seen as building blocks for 21st century technologies.
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prospectivity and resource endowment the price and outlook for key commodities explorer and investor confidence policy and regulatory stability
As the market drives commodity prices, the scorecard concentrates on lead indicators that can be influenced. These are explorer and investor confidence and access to the essential factors of production.
Queensland’s exploration optimism in 201819 is illustrated by expenditure increases across all major commodities – including a 25% increase in exploration expenditure for coal, 19% for petroleum and 10% for gold and copper.
Table 1: Scorecard snapshot: resource prospectivity/endowment sentiment 2011-19
Queensland’s world-class prospectivity continues as a net positive, with sentiment positive since the first scorecard published in 2011. 20
BBMC Yearbook 2019
