Australian Mineral Exploration Review 2025 Significant drill results – precious metals and other commodities

Gold is primarily used as a store of value and investment asset by governments, central banks and private investors. In addition, jewellery fabrication accounts for a significant share of annual gold consumption. Industrial applications represent a smaller but important component of demand, with gold widely used in the electronics industry due to its high electrical conductivity and resistance to corrosion⁶³.

Gold exploration continues to dominate mineral exploration activity in Australia. In 2025, it accounted for approximately 40% of total national mineral exploration expenditure, reflecting strong ongoing interest in the gold sector (Figure 2a).

In Australia, gold typically occurs in association with a range of deposit types such as iron oxide copper–gold deposits, porphyry systems and orogenic gold deposits. While all three major deposit types contribute significantly to the country’s resource base, it is orogenic deposits, that account for the largest proportion of Australia’s gold production⁶⁴.

The high volume of significant drilling results (Table 11) reflects the increase in gold exploration expenditure in 2025. There is a concentration of results in known gold regions such as Kalgoorlie-Boulder in Western Australia, Bendigo-Ballarat in Victoria and the Cobar region in New South Wales (Figure 13).

Silver is mined and refined into a highly versatile metal used across both traditional and advanced industries. It is an essential component of modern economies, widely used in electronics, solar panels, medical applications, jewellery and coinage due to its unmatched electrical conductivity, reflectivity and antimicrobial properties. It underpins rapidly growing sectors such as renewable energy and digital technologies, with critical applications in photovoltaic cells, circuit boards and electrical systems that support electrification and decarbonisation. Australia plays a moderate role in global silver supply, producing around 4% of world output⁶⁵ .

Significant silver drill results occurred in the central New South Wales region where polymetallic mineralisation is well known (Figure 14). Queensland also had numerous significant exploration results in 2025, particularly along the eastern coast of the state. While results from other states were sparse, many were from early-stage projects with varying depths (Table 12).

Iron is one of the most important metals in modern society, primarily because it is the main component of steel, which is used extensively in construction, manufacturing and transportation. Steel derived from iron provides the structural framework for buildings, bridges and infrastructure, as well as key components in vehicles, machinery, tools and appliances, making it essential to industrial development and everyday life.

Globally, about 98% of iron ore is used for steelmaking, highlighting its central role in economic activity and infrastructure growth⁶⁶. Australia plays a leading role in the global iron ore industry, being the world’s largest producer and exporter, with production approaching around 955 million tonnes annually in recent years. Most of this production comes from Western Australia, particularly the Pilbara region, which dominates national output and supports extensive export networks⁶⁷. Although iron ore is a mature industry, it continues to attract exploration investment and remains a major contributor to Australia’s export earnings, underpinning regional employment and global supply chains.

Iron ore exploration expenditure has slowed over the past two decades although there has been a more recent uptick starting in 2021 (Figure 3b; see section 2.2). Despite accounting for 20.1% of mineral exploration expenditure in 2025, there were limited significant drill results for Australia reported to stock exchanges. This could be due to the majority of iron ore exploration being carried out by major mining companies who do not report iron ore drill results. All significant iron ore results in 2025 were in Western Australia (Figure 15; Table 13).

Uranium is predominantly used as fuel in nuclear reactors for electricity generation, as well as for medical isotopes and in certain industrial applications. Geologically, uranium deposits in Australia commonly occur in iron oxide breccia complexes, unconformity-related settings, sandstone-hosted environments and calcrete-style deposits⁶⁸.

Australia hosts the largest economic resources of uranium globally, with significant resources primarily concentrated in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Western Australia⁶⁹. Despite possessing extensive uranium resources, Australia does not use nuclear power domestically; instead, the uranium extracted is entirely exported under stringent international agreements, ensuring it is utilised solely for peaceful purposes and does not contribute to any military applications⁷⁰.

Uranium exploration activity in 2025 occurred across jurisdictions with differing policies for uranium exploration and mining. South Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmina permit uranium mining and exploration, while Queensland and New South Wales both permit uranium exploration but not mining. Western Australia also permits uranium exploration and restricts uranium mining, apart from projects approved before 2017 that have demonstrated substantial commencement. Victoria prohibits both uranium exploration and mining⁷¹. Despite these restrictions, significant drill results were reported from four early-stage projects in South Australia, with a further three early-stage projects in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland (Figure 16). There were two additional significant drill results reported from projects with established Mineral Resources in Queensland and Western Australia (Table 14) despite mining not currently being permitted in these jurisdictions.