JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Although Africa accounted for 13%, or $916-million, of the global mineral exploration budget in 2016, research from Standard & Poor’s (S&P’s) Global Market Intelligence has revealed that that was 24% lower than in 2015.

The continent has, thus, dropped to being the fourth-largest investor in exploration, from third-largest in 2015.

The research data, which was released earlier this week, found that, out of Africa's 34 mining countries, only the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) set an exploration budget of more than $100-million last year.

S&P Global Market Intelligence found that drilling in the final quarter of 2016 went up to 1 183 drill holes from the 844 holes drilled in the third quarter of 2016.

“Gold has long been the top drilling target in Africa; however, the number of drilling announcements for graphite matched those for gold in the last quarter,” S&P Global Market Intelligence research and support analyst Iqra Mughal noted.

She added that gold was the most valuable commodity produced in Africa, accounting for an estimated $14.6-billion in sales revenues in 2015, calculated by multiplying 2015 total commodity production by 2015 average spot prices.

Mughal highlighted that copper projects accounted for the largest amount of planned and completed capital spending in 2016, with the majority being focused on assets in the DRC.

Of particular note in the report was Africa-focused project developer Ivanhoe Mines’ $1.81-billion investment for the Kamoa-Kakula copper project, which the company announced in December last year, which included initial, sustaining and expansion capital for the Kakula Phase 1 development.

Gold projects amounted to the second-largest capital commitment at $4.6-billion, of which a large portion was announced for assets located in Botswana and Mauritania.

Coal and iron-ore had the highest in-situ values for reported reserves and resources as at December 27, 2016, with values totalling $7.6-trillion and $5.9-trillion respectively.

South Africa and Morocco were the key contributors in terms of resource value by country, based mostly on coal and platinum-group metals in South Africa and on phosphates in Morocco.

Financings targeted for Africa accounted for 15.2% of the total funds raised globally in the September 2016 quarter, improving to $1.04-billion, compared with the $530-million raised in the same quarter in 2015.