Presentation at the XPLOR 2020 Virtual Conference organised by the QMEA, Montreal, October 2020
Presentation:
The Quebec Mineral Exploration Association (QMEA) holds an Annual Conference each year. This time around it was held on-line.
My presentation gives a high-level view of exploration expenditures and discoveries for the period 1975-2019 for Canada versus the rest of the World
In summary:
- Global exploration expenditures peaked at $35.2 billion in 2012 and dropped by 2/3rds by 2017. It rebounded to $11.9 billion in 2019 and is set to fall to $9.8 billion in 2020 (due to COVID) before rebounding by 30% to $16.9 billion (in constant 2020 US Dollars) by 2030.
- Over the study period around 4800 significant discoveries were made – an average of 108 per year. Canada accounted (on average) for 11 of these.
- On average only 2 to 3 Tier-1 and 9 Tier-2 deposits are found each year. Collectively they account for 73% of the total value created by the exploration industry.
- Of concern is that no Tier-1 deposits have been found in the last three years.
- Over the last 15 years the exploration industry has switched from creating-value to destroying value. For the period 201-19 the industry generated only 49 cents of value to Dollar spent on exploration.
- The average “bang-per-buck” for Canada was 55 cents. The best region was Africa – with 102 cents.
- In Canada the Junior Companies performed better than the Senior Companies (94 cents versus 22 cents) – though the latter’s poor performance may be due to their heavy focus on mine site exploration (on deposits found several decades earlier)
- It should be noted that these numbers are likely to improve over time – as the analysis ignores the value unreported discoveries and the potential for known deposits to grow in-size (and value) with further drilling.