PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The South Australian government has announced a A$20-million investment into the state’s copper industry, which the resources sector has welcomed.

Ahead of his mid-year Budget review, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said that the government would invest the funds over the next two years to allow the state to bounce back strongly when commodity prices returned to higher levels, and to open new mines when global demand allowed.

“There is a critical issue facing the resources sector right now; a significant decline in exploration investment and project advancement, which has led to job losses,” Koutsantonis was quoted as saying.

“The time is right for South Australia to deliver a new geoscientific initiative that will help the exploration industry recover from the challenging global economic cycle of the past five years and confidently face the next surge in exploration for strategic metals such as copper.”

The South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy (Sacome) said that the new Plan for Accelerating Exploration (Pace) programme, was expected to generate over A$400-million of additional mineral exploration and up to 1 000 jobs.

“The government recognises that just one single mine can be a game changer for the state’s economy,” said Sacome CEO Jason Kuchel.

“This initiative is aimed at assisting the junior exploration sector, which is the powerhouse of finding new discoveries, to focus their very limited resources on even better targets that will be defined by this additional data.”

Kuchel said that the government’s copper strategy had been a proactive initiative shaped by extensive consultation with industry.

“This will be an enabler to ensure the right decisions can be made, in order to realise the massive potential of this state’s known and yet to be discovered mineral resources.”

The Association of Mining and Exploration Companies (Amec) had also welcomed the move, with CEO Simon Bennison saying that the new initiative would assist in encouraging much needed exploration investment in the state.

“Mineral exploration in South Australia has been falling consecutively since the December 2014 quarter and is at the lowest levels since 2004.

“This initiative is a step toward achieving South Australia's goal of tripling the state’s copper production to one-million tonnes per year by 2030. This will make Australia the world’s third-largest copper producer.”