Published: June 13, 2017 |

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The Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology’s exploration survey for 2015-2016 that was released in early March also reported exploration spending was expected to increase this year. The Nevada Division of Minerals supported the survey.

“Despite the downturn in the commodities sector, an encouraging 51 percent of Nevada exploration companies forecast they plan to spend more in 2017 on exploration and 37 percent expect to spend the same,” authors Michael Ressel and David Davis wrote.

A minimum of $324.8 million went toward exploration in Nevada in 2016, down by 6.4 percent from the $347.5 million spent in 2015 and down more than half from 2011 when exploration spending reached $674.7 million, the survey states.

Exploration expenditures fell 52 percent in the state between 2011 and 2016. The report states that during that time spending to explore for gold and geothermal resources were cut essentially in half, exploration for industrial minerals, including lithium, showed a steady rise.

During those years, gold prices slipped from a London afternoon fixing price of $1,895 an ounce in September 2011 to the range of roughly $1,200 to $1,350, with the highest 2017 price as of early May at $1,284.15 an ounce on April 13, according to Kitco data.

The report states that gold exploration took about 86 percent of the exploration expenditures in 2016, with two primarily gold-producing companies contributing roughly 38 percent of the total. Gold explorers contributed 44 percent of expenditures, while a boom in lithium interest showed roughly 2.3 times the expenditures in 2016 than 2015.

The survey also found that exploration employment was up in 2016, with surveyed companies directly employing 808 people last year, up 8 percent from the 746 employed in 2015. Still, that was considerably down from the 1,040 employees reported for 2011.

The report notes, however, that employment figures for exploration are only for those companies that responded and don’t cover subcontractors.

The exploration survey before this one was done during the last peak exploration period of 2011-2012 under commission from the Nevada Commission on Mineral Resources and the minerals division. The survey covered exploration for metal, industrial mineral and geothermal resources.

According to the latest survey, questionnaires went to 296 companies, and 86 responded with information, while another 23 responded they were no longer exploring in Nevada. The bureau also researched 54 companies that didn’t respond using public domain sources.

Source: (June 8, 2017) Elko Daily Free Press

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