URL: https://geoscience.data.qld.gov.au/dataset/cr122528
The Government recognises the key role that mineral exploration will need to play in Queensland’s future economic and regional development, and encourages the search for new discoveries to replace older mines as they close. New discoveries of base metal resources are required if Queensland is to maintain a long-term dominance in these commodities. In addition, Queensland’s importance as a gold and mineral sands producer will continue to decline, unless good quality discoveries are made.
Also, with the emergence of new industries, Queensland has an array of commodities such as graphite, lithium, cobalt and rare earths to support development of high-end materials such as batteries, electronics, and high-strength light alloys for aircraft and motor vehicles.
The opportunities for major new discoveries lie either in well-explored brownfields regions at depths beyond conventional company drilling (> ~150 metres (m)), or in greenfields regions where significant deposits may lie buried beneath varying thicknesses of blanketing cover rocks. Figure 1 illustrates the mineral occurrences outcrop and the prospective areas under cover in north west Queensland.
The Queensland Government has introduced a number of funding programs in recent years to stimulate exploration investment and mitigate exploration risk by gathering new geoscientific data and subsidising selected exploration activities, in particular the Greenfields 2020 program which was established in 2010 with the aim of making Queensland Australia’s Greenfield exploration capital by 2020. The most recent funding announced in the 2017-2018 budget is $27.125 million over four years for the Strategic Resources Exploration Program. The program will support initiatives mainly targeted at North West Queensland and follows on from the Future Resources Program which concluded in mid-2017.
These programs provide support across the sector from the small miner to the large operator.