”We’ve identified six exploration challenges juniors face, and how geoscience can overcome them to manage data more effectively, gain investment more easily and explore more successfully.
Rob FergusonSeequent Segment Director, Exploration and Resource Management.
- Exploration funding is up, but the challenges have risen to match.
- Juniors need to stand out as agile, focused and data-led to impress investors in this competitive market.
- Better targeted drilling will be critical to cutting costs, reducing risk and prioritising the most significant finds.
- Teams need to collaborate more than ever, even when the pandemic has thrown new obstacles into their path.
- The latest geoscience technology and software solutions can help, and give ambitious juniors the leverage they need.
There are huge opportunities waiting for junior mining exploration companies in the coming 12 months, with strong gold and metal prices leading to a boom in funding for exploration, and lots of drilling happening as a result.
But equally, while the funding may have grown, so to have the hurdles to successful discovery. The easy deposits have all been found, and the remaining prospects are likely to sit deeper underground, be more remote, and require intense analysis to establish their worth. Juniors face a number of obstacles to seizing this day of exploration possibility. Luckily, there are answers…
At Seequent we believe the key to today’s junior explorers achieving greater success is to understand the earth beneath their feet more clearly than at any period in the industry’s history. And geoscience technology has never been better placed to help them do exactly that.
The latest techniques and software solutions can contribute enormously to the successful testing of favourable areas, while reducing the effort required to deliver on investment, generating shareholder value and confidently predicting and justifying the costs of drilling and development. It can even help juniors address the increasingly complex environmental and geopolitical concerns that surround mining today.
We have identified six challenges that juniors face in this endeavour, as well as the ways geoscience can support them to overcome those barriers – to gain investment and partners more easily, to manage data more effectively and to explore more successfully.
We’ve looked at:
- Field sampling. Finding ways to improve the productivity of your sampling teams and make the most of the data they gather.
- Geophysics survey and analysis. Establishing a faster and more cost-effective way to unearth the geological clues that will tell you where to explore.
- Drill planning. Examining the route to creating a data-driven ‘big picture’ that targets your drilling on the most promising sites.
- Building geological models. Using them to become an agile company that can quickly shift focus to new potential finds ahead of the competition.
- Quantification. Outlining the simple steps you can take to bring the creation of resource estimates in house, so reducing costs while increasing accuracy.
- Managing your data. Building a ‘single source of truth’ at the heart of your data that will aid collaboration and drive faster, more confident decision making.
We’ve brought together eight Seequent experts – from Exploration Segment Directors to regional Technical Leaders – to pool their ideas on how each of these challenges can be addressed.
The results are available in a free eBook that forms a practical guide to discovering faster and drilling smarter.
Impressing investors and partners in a fast-moving market
In March of 2020, the funding for gold, metals and speciality commodities had barely eclipsed $500m. In March 2021 it was approaching $3,250m. To say the shift in fortunes and possibilities is dramatic would be an understatement.
However, while this is a booming market, it is also a fiercely competitive one, and juniors need to stand out in order to attract investment and partners.
The intelligent use of geoscience data, at every stage of the mining lifecycle, can be a highly effective mechanism in instilling confidence in investors and reducing risk. It can underpin every decision made on a project. It will drive success.
We believe Seequent can help get you there and this eBook is just one way we want to help.
Please come back to our site across the remainder of 2021 for more blogs, analysis and thought leadership on this issue. In the time being, you can access our eBook, here along with its pre-prep checklist of 20 questions to ask yourself before you head into the field.
