Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 1998

Authors / CoAuthors

Abstract

In 1997, Australia's Economic Demonstrated Resources (EDR) of bauxite, black coal, cobalt, magnesite, mineral sands, nickel, tantalum and vanadium rose. Reduced EDR were recorded for antimony, cadmium, copper, gold, industrial and gem and near gem diamond, iron ore, lead, lithium, manganese ore, platinum group metals, silver, tin, uranium and zinc. The falls in EDR were due mainly to ongoing high levels of production. EDR of all other mineral commodities remained unchanged. Among the major commodities, EDR of nickel, ilmenite, rutile and zircon reached record levels in 1997. Bauxite continued the slow growth started in 1993 and although black coal EDR rose it remained in the range that has existed since 1987. Gold EDR fell in 1997, breaking the long term growth trend that started in 1982. EDR of iron ore has fallen since 1994 and in 1997 was at its lowest level since 1990. Lead and zinc EDR both continued on a downward trend reaching the lowest levels since 1992. Following a small fall in 1996 copper EDR fell again in 1997. Mineral exploration expenditure rose by 20% from $960.2 million in the previous year to $1148.5 million in 1996-97. Increases were recorded in all States except Queensland where a reduction of 11% occurred. A fall of 5% was recorded for expenditure in the Northern Territory. Gold was again the main target, and increased its share of total expenditure from 57% to 63%. Of the total expenditure about 73% was spent in greenfields leases. Despite the continued growth, in constant dollar terms, expenditure in 1996-97 was still below the peak of 1987-88. In 1996-97 mineral resources exports increased to $36 495 million, a rise of 5% over the previous fiscal year. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) forecast export earnings to rise to $44 530 million in 2002-03. The so called Asian financial crisis may impact adversely on Australia's ability to achieve the projected level of exports.

Product Type

nonGeographicDataset

eCat Id

70950

Contact for the resource

Custodian

MNHD

Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
ACT
2601
Australia

Keywords

GA PublicationReport

( Theme )

commodities

( Theme )

mineral deposits

( Theme )

mineral exploration

( Theme )

resource assessment

( Theme )

geoscience

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

Earth Sciences

Published_External

Publication Date

1998-01-01T00:00:00

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Classification - unclassified

Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Access - license

Use - license

Status

Purpose

Maintenance Information

unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

Series Information

Lineage

Unknown

Parent Information

Extents

[-44.0, -9.0, 110.0, 156.0]

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

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