EXPERT INSIGHTS FOR 2025

WITH THE POTENTIAL FOR DECLINING INTEREST RATES AND MORE GEOPOLITICAL STABILITY, SRK CONSULTING BELIEVES GROWTH IS ON THE HORIZON FOR THE AUSTRALIAN MINING INDUSTRY.

While some commodities have endured a difficult 2024 amid cyclically low prices, others are experiencing renewed prosperity in the face of heightened demand.

Mining and exploration companies must steel themselves to the undulations that come with working in an industry that hinges so dominantly on supply and demand.

But while all miners are likely to face a bear market at one point or another, there are ways in which companies can insulate themselves from the ups and downs.

Australian Mining sat down with SRK Consulting to examine the past year in the local and international mining industry, and to assess some potential trends for 2025.

The year that was

According to SRK's principal geoscientist Carl D'Silva, the seeds of 2024 were laid when decarbonisation first became a global priority following the instalment of the Paris Agreement in 2015.

"The energy market is growing exponentially, and if you say you're going to decarbonise an economy yet you're not bringing in the battery minerals such as nickel, lithium, graphite, manganese and cobalt, you really aren't making any dent into your decarbonisation goals," D'Silva told Australian Mining.

"So when the decarbonisation push began, we needed a quantum change in how we mined commodities."

"One piece of advice I was given by some seasoned explorers is that if you're an exploration company, it's best to play in the big markets," Johnson told Australian Mining.

"And what we've seen this year is more mature minerals like copper have been reasonably resilient, because the copper market is so huge." Copper has been mined and consumed across the world for centuries, making the supply-demand dynamic more predictable. And because copper's end market has significantly more scale than some other maturing commodities, a proportionally surging demand can make it hard for supply to keep pace.