Whenever the mining industry experiences a downturn, exploration spending usually plummets, a phenomena best illustrated by South Africa, whose exploration budget, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence, decreased from $404-million in 2007 to $87-million in 2017. From a global perspective, there are signs that the industry’s financial performance is improving and a comparative analysis on exploration expenditure for 2016, 2017 and 2018 by S&P Global Market Intelligence demonstrates a similar upward trend, says law firm Fasken partner Dimitri Cavvadas.
