MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Australia's spending on mineral exploration extended a recovery in the September quarter to hit its highest level in five years, data from the country's statistics bureau showed on Monday.
Exploration spending climbed by 3.6 percent to A$561.4 million ($413.64 million) from the quarter before and soared 25.7 percent from year-ago levels as miners who rode a commodity price recovery sought to renew growth, according to trend data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The biggest pickup in spending came from the gold and iron-ore rich state of Western Australia, which has also found fresh interest from the battery sector as it has the world's largest deposits of hard rock lithium.
Most of the exploration spending focused on new deposits — up 13 percent — while expenditures on areas of existing deposits fell 2 percent. The ABS, however, did not specify whether the changes were on a quarter-on-quarter or year-on-year basis.
The largest increase by minerals sought came from spending on gold exploration, which rose by 8.5 percent to A$18.8 million, the ABS said.
(For a graphic on Australian spending on minerals exploration hits 5 year top, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2RvHwa6)
For petroleum, spending climbed 14.5 percent or A$39.9 million to A$314.3 million in the September quarter, as spending showed signs of a tentative recovery. Spending had slumped from more than A$1.4 billion levels when oil prices crashed in 2014.
(For a graphic on Australia's spending on petroleum exploration ticks higher in September, click here https://tmsnrt.rs/2RpYGpv)
Western Australia also witnessed the maximum increase in exploration spending for petroleum, the data showed.
(Reporting by Melanie Burton; editing by Rashmi Aich)
