Global Resources and Global Exploration Budget

Most of the countries in Africa are endowed with mineral deposits. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Jamaica, Tobago and Trinidad are the major mineral producers in the Latin America region. In the North America region, the US, Canada and the Mexico are endowed with rich mineral resources. The major minerals produced in the US include copper, gold, iron ore, lime, salt, phosphate rock and zinc.

The countries in the European Union (EU) and the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) are significant participants in the world mineral economy and occupy important roles as suppliers and consumers of major minerals. EU, which plays the role of processor and consumer of minerals, depends on the import of the large volume of its mineral requirements, while the consumption of minerals is relatively low in Central Asia. In the CIS region, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine are the leading mineral producing countries. Other mineral producing and processing countries in the CIS region include Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and
Uzbekistan. All the three major countries in the North America region, viz., the US, Canada and the Mexico are endowed with rich mineral resources.

Gold attracted the maximum exploration budget:In 2010, gold attracted an exploration budget of US$5.4 billion, a rise of US$1.9 billion y-o-y. Uncertain global economic fundamentals and historically high gold prices promoted gold explorers to increase their budgets. Canada, Australia, the US, Mexico, Russia, China, Peru, Columbia, Brazil and Chile are the 10 major countries accounting for more than two-third of the total gold exploration budget.

Share of the base metal exploration declined in the overall exploration budget: In 2008, the exploration budget for base metals was more than US$5 billion, which is 41% of the total exploration budget. After registering a sharp dip in 2009, the overall base metal exploration budget bounced back in 2010.
The total global aggregated budget on copper, nickel and zinc accounted for around US$3.5 billion in2010.Latin America accounted for the largest base metals budget (33% of total) in 2010.

Share of diamond exploration has been on a continuous decline since 2003: In 2010, the exploration budget for diamonds declined by 9% budget. Canada, Russia and South African countries remain the major destinations for diamond exploration.

PGM exploration budget is mainly focused in Africa: In 2010, the PGM exploration budget increased by 13% y-o-y; however its share in the total exploration budget is on a continuous decline. It slipped below 2% in 2010, as opposed to 6% in 2002 and 2003. Africa and Canada remained the major destinations for PGM exploration, together accounting for more than 80% of the total global exploration budget in the PGM segment. (Pulverizer manufacturers in India)

India produces 87 minerals, which include 4 fuel minerals, 10 metallic, 47 non-metallic, 3 atomic and 23 minor minerals. The country has abundant reserves of key minerals such as iron ore, bauxite, dolomite, gypsum, limestone, mica and adequate reserves of chromite, manganese, zinc and graphite. In fact, India is a leading producer of key minerals such as iron ore and bauxite. Though the industry is largely fragmented, comprising several small scale operational mines, it is still dominated by the public sector, which accounted for 74.5% of the total mineral production in India in FY11. The total value of mineral production (excluding atomic minerals) during 2010-11 is estimated at INR 2,006 billion, an increase of around 11.83% y-o-y.