Cyclical fluctuations of mineral exploration market and analysis of mineral exploration trends in China

Driven by the social economic development, the changes of mineral exploration market show obvious cyclical fluctuations, which consist of long cycle changes, medium and short cycle changes, and random changes. Changes of mineral exploration market in past 50 years in Australia indicated that long cycle changes of economic growth resulted in the basic trend of supply and demand relationship of mineral resources, and the relationship of mineral supply and demand resulted in the long cycle changes of mineral exploration expenditure; medium and short cycle changes of economic growth resulted in the cyclical fluctuations of mineral prices, and the cyclical fluctuations of mineral prices resulted in the medium and short cycle changes of mineral exploration expenditure. Stimulated by the new round of strategic prospecting project, mineral exploration got into a rising period and showed different features compared with global exploration. The mineral exploration expenditure has risen up for 4 years continuously since 2020, and its growth rates speed up year by year. The mineral exploration expenditure increased by 25.4% in 2023, and the internal forces of the exploration market gets strengthened substantially. Compared with global exploration, the change of mineral exploration in China deviates its normal market trends after 2016, and mostly is more affected by domestic policy environment. It can be concluded from domestic economic development that the mineral exploration market is in a special stage which long cycle changes is overlapped by medium and short cycle changes, and policy environment is improved remarkably. The long cycle changes and the medium and short cycle changes of economic development exert great downward pressure on mineral exploration, and the remarkable improvement of policy environment forms a great upward pulling force for mineral exploration. The policy dividend will be released in 2-3 years, which implies that the rising stage of mineral exploration be extended by 2-3 years.