Presentation: AMIRA Global – Exploration Managers Conference, Location: Sanctuary Cove, Queensland, Australia, September 2025
All too often discoveries get stalled, and never get developed – that’s a waste of time, money and opportunity. The purpose of this presentation is to identify the key characteristics of those discoveries that do quickly go into production.
The key observations from my presentation were:
■ On average less than half of all discoveries turn into mines. And of those that deposits that do get mined, there is (depending on the commodity type and location) a 15-20 year delay between discovery and development.
However, “simple averages” can be misleading. Some projects go into production quicker than others. A better way of assessing the time-delay is to look at how the percentage of projects developed increases over time … and what the shape of the “trajectory” is.
The key challenge is that the conversion rate for discoveries is getting LOWER and SLOWER
■ The conversion Rate varies by commodity type; Gold projects typically go into production quicker than base metal projects, which, in turn, are quicker than bulk mineral projects.
■ High Unit Value commodities are more likely to be developed. Grade is “king”.
■ Size is also important – larger deposits are more likely to be developed/
■ The most important factor is the quality of the discovery. Tier 1 & 2 discoveries are twice as likely to go into production than Tier 3 or Unclassified deposits.
■ Surprisingly, gold & copper projects in Africa and Latin America are 1.5-2 times more likely to be developed than projects in Australia Canada or USA. This could be driven by the former hosting larger and higher grade deposits.
■ An analysis of the current status of 250 Copper and Gold Projects at PreFeas/Feasibility Study Stage in the World found that 52% of them are presently stalled. Of these, half were stalled because of poor economics, the other half due to ESG issues. The key impediment for two-third of the ESG stalled projects were associated with Social and Environmental issues.
Note: Being “Currently Stalled” isn’t a death-sentence … with persistence, better engagement with communities and innovation (and better prices!) projects can progress.
It could be argued that making the discovery is the “easy” part. Unlocking its value by quickly turning it into a mine is the real challenge.