The Queensland Government has been urged not to drop its support for minerals and energy exploration to ensure that the state continues to sustain a thriving resources sector. “We share the government’s desire for Queensland to become Australia’s greenfield exploration capital by 2020,” said Queensland Resources Council Chief Executive Michael Roche. However, [it] needs to plug a A$1.1 billion shortfall in projected exploration expenditure if it’s to achieve the target announced by the Bligh Government just before the 2009 election in March last year,” he said.

Roche continued: “With its three-year A$29 million ‘Smart Mining’ exploration initiative set to expire at the end of 2009-10, we call on the government to provide the Geological Survey of Queensland (GSQ) with stable ongoing funding for its exploration support programs of A$25 million per annum, plus a new marketing capability of A$3-4 million annually.

“Western Australia currently reigns as Australia’s greenfield exploration capital. A straight line extrapolation of the rates of growth in exploration expenditure over the past four years suggests that by 2020, Queensland’s greenfield exploration would have grown to around A$400 million, while WA’s would have grown to around A$1.5 billion leaving a A$1.1 billion shortfall.

“Clearly ‘business-as-usual’ policy settings are not going to be sufficient to achieve the greenfield exploration target. Our minerals production rates in Queensland are out-stripping our ability to find new resources.

“That’s why we need a well-funded and highly active GSQ, turning out high-quality information about the state’s minerals and energy prospectivity. It is the quality of this geoscience information that will attract exploration capital into Queensland and boost our chances of major new minerals and energy discoveries.

“Though Queensland is highly prospective, we are in danger of falling further behind more active jurisdictions elsewhere in Australia and in parts of Canada and Africa. The good news is that QRC’s latest CEOs sentiment index shows that confidence is returning in the industry, with the worst of the global financial crisis now behind us.”