Mining companies in Australia are struggling to be profitable due to lower metals prices, higher costs and lack of funding. “Now States are considering potentially increasing royalties in some of the gold companies,” Wilson says when asked about political issues in Australia. “That has put a bit of a scare amongst the local gold companies.”
Regarding exploration in Australia, Wilson says that companies are now focusing on making every drill hole count. “We’ve seen a number of high profile CEOs depart a number of big mining companies in the past 12 months,” Wilson adds. “Newcrest had over four or five production downgrades in the last few years and multibillion dollar write-downs, so the CEO departure is the icing on the cake.”