Gold accounted for 40 per cent of Australia’s total mineral exploration expenditure in 2025 after a 34 per cent surge in spending on the precious metal, new national figures show.
The numbers come from the Australian Mineral Exploration Review (AMER), released by Geoscience Australia, the Federal Government’s geoscience agency. Published annually since 2009, the review draws on Australian Bureau of Statistics data and company reports to track exploration activity across the country.
Total expenditure held steady at $3.9 billion, up 0.2 per cent on 2024, and gold is where most of the new money went. Silver-lead-zinc exploration spending rose 20 per cent.
The year also produced 69 maiden mineral resources across 50 projects, concentrated in the Yilgarn region of Western Australia. Critical minerals featured in 32 of those discoveries. Australia’s known gallium resources grew 467 per cent, antimony 40 per cent and rare earth elements 8 per cent.
All three are priorities under the Federal Government’s Critical Minerals Strategic Reserve. The review points to discoveries in established mining districts and frontier regions of northern Australia as room for new investment.
Government policies such as the Critical Minerals Strategy are backing the search, along with Geoscience Australia’s 35-year Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity program, which funds early-stage geoscience work.
The 2025 edition is the first to offer the full report and its underlying data as a download.
“This new digital format puts users at the centre allowing them to perform further analysis by adding the data to their own datasets and enabling spatial analysis via GIS software or platforms such as the Digital Atlas of Australia,” Geoscience Australia resource insights branch head Kristina Anastasi said.
“By making the data more accessible and usable, we are helping governments, industry, investors and researchers better understand exploration trends and apply those insights to their own priorities and decision-making processes.”
