It has been estimated that the worldwide total budget for nonferrous metals exploration has dropped 25% from $15.19 in 2013 to $11.36 billion in 2014. The data was from almost 3,500 mining and exploration companies worldwide, of which almost 2,000 had exploration budgets for 2014.

The data was compiled for the forthcoming 25th edition of SNL Metals & Mining’s Corporate Exploration Strategies study. The companies, each budgeting at least $100,000, budgeted a total of $10.74 billion for nonferrous exploration in 2014. Including our estimates for budgets we could not obtain, the 2014 worldwide exploration budget comes to $11.36 billion. Nonferrous exploration refers to expenditures related to precious and base metals, diamonds, uranium, and some industrial minerals; it specifically excludes iron ore, aluminum, coal, and oil and gas.

Higher operating and capital costs, lower ore grades, uncertain demand for commodities and investor discontent have required major companies to focus on a return to healthy margins after years of growth-oriented spending. The majors have been divesting noncore assets and cutting back on capital project and exploration spending, which has led to a 25% drop in the majors’ exploration budget total in 2014.

The juniors continue to battle lackluster investor interest, which has forced the group to rein in spending in order to conserve funds. The juniors’ total exploration budget fell 29% year over year in 2014 after falling 39% in 2013, dropping their share of the overall budget total to 32% from a high of 55% in 2007.

Exploration allocations for all targets except platinum group metals decreased in 2014. Although gold remains the most attractive target, gold budgets declined for the second consecutive year — dropping 31% to $4.57 billion — to account for the metal’s lowest share of worldwide exploration budgets since 2009 at just 43%. Despite base metals budgets falling by $1 billion, their collective share of total budgets increased 2% to reach the highest level since 2008. Base metals and gold allocations have a consistently inverse relationship in terms of their shares of overall budgets.