Despite the huge amounts of exploration expenditure in the last mining boom between 2011-2013, there has been a noticeable lack of new mines in development.
One reason is that mineral exploration is naturally subject to diminishing returns; the more deposits discovered, the fewer left to discover in future. Also, much of this capital was focused on brownfield, often low-grade expansion projects, with only a handful of new, truly greenfield, discoveries. Now, with another economic boom on the horizon, and substantial deficits potentially looming for commodities such as copper, expectations will be placed on the exploration sector to improve discovery rates in both brownfields and greenfields environments or otherwise face a ‘commodity crunch’.
This thought leadership article is included the 2021 Mining Magazine Intelligence Exploration Report.
