SA

Back in 1850, South Australia was producing a third of the world’s copper and was known around the world, as the “Copper Kingdom”.   Discoveries of copper near Glen Osmond spurred the growth of South Australia, underpinned the flourishing city of Adelaide and funding many of the grand buildings that now give the city its distinct character.

South Australia holds 68% of Australia’s economically demonstrated copper resources, 27.5% of Australia’s economically demonstrated gold resources, 80% of Australia’s identified uranium resources and 14 billion tonnes of identified iron ore resources.

The Gawler Craton in South Australia is best known for iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) deposits, as exemplified by Olympic Dam, which is the fourth largest copper mine and boasts the largest known single deposit of uranium in the world.

Spending on mineral exploration in South Australia eclipsed an 11-year-old record in 2022, with $64.2 million spent on exploration in the March quarter, up $16.7m on the December 2022 quarter. This surpassed the $61 million spent on exploration in South Australia’s previous record-earning quarter to December 2012.