Investment in gold and coal exploration in Canada’s British Columbia continued to decrease in 2019, as investors are shifting their focus to base metals, particularly copper.

However, with C$127-million put towards gold exploration, the yellow precious metal continues to attract the largest exploration spending out of the province’s total exploration spend of C$329-million in 2019.

In its ‘British Columbia Mineral and Coal Exploration Survey’, published on Monday, advisory group EY reported that significantly more money went into base metals exploration in 2019 than in 2018.

Base metals exploration expenditure jumped by 38% last year, with $103-million put into copper exploration, C$25-million into nickel exploration and $15-million into lead and zinc.

The shift to base metals exploration in British Columbia is in line with what is happening elsewhere in the world. According to EY, base metals exploration is outpacing gold exploration expenditure globally.

“Global demand for base metals has seen a significant increase, likely driven by an uptick in demand for electric vehicles and green energy, pushing investor focus from gold to copper,” said EY mining and metals advisory leader Iain Thompson.

Coal exploration decreased by 18% to C$41-million in 2019, despite optimism in the previous year surrounding future growth.

The Golden Triangle of north-western British Columbia continues to attract exploration activity, as investors capitalise on high-grade discoveries supported by investment from major firms, partnerships with Indigenous groups and continued infrastructure development.

The Northwest region accounted for 55% of total expenditure for the province, seeing a 10% increase in spending.

Meanwhile, EY said 2019 was the first year since publishing the survey that early stage exploration did not increase as a percentage of total exploration spend. Grassroots and early-stage exploration accounted for 40% of total exploration in 2019, down from 44% in 2018, as exploration spend moved to advanced and mine evaluation stages.

“We’ve seen a further shift in spending along the exploration lifecycle, with increases in late-stage exploration bringing forward the possibility of new mines in the province in the near future,” said Thompson.

The survey is a joint initiative between the government of British Columbia’s Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources, the Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) and EY, which includes insight collected from 326 exploration projects across the province.

“Seeing exploration spending remain steady and the significant investment into exploration activity in the Northwest region is encouraging,” commented AME president and CEO Kendra Johnston.

“It will be interesting to see the results from the projects in the area and we’re optimistic that it will be a busy year ahead for our members."

Nationally, Canada’s exploration expenditure slid to fourth in global rankings — behind South America, Australia and Europe/Mainland Asia — for the first time since 2001. Relative to exploration expenditures across all Canadian provinces, British Columbia saw a decline of 16.8% in exploration expenditure year-on-year, compared with both Québec and Ontario, which saw declines of 9% and 13%, respectively.

Earlier this month, the Fraser Institute’s latest Survey of Mining Companies was released and showed that no Canadian jurisdiction ranked in the top ten for ‘investment attractiveness’, with the top ten dominated by Australian, US and European jurisdictions. This was the first time in ten years that no Canadian jurisdiction featured in the top.

The federal government is stepping up efforts to regain Canada’s dominant position in mining. At last week’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention, in Toronto, Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan launched the first action plan under the Canadian Minerals and Metals Plan, detailing the measures put in place to ensure the mining industry seizes opportunities in the “clean-growth century”.

The plan includes specific actions that government is taking to establish Canada as the “leading mining nation in the twenty-first century”.