The Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA welcomes today's announcement of a significant increase to funding for the State Government's Exploration Incentive Scheme.
It was announced that yearly funding for the Scheme would increase from $10 million to $12.5 million from 2021-22, after a one-off funding increase of $5 million was made in 2020-21 as part of the WA Recovery Plan.
"Exploration is absolutely critical to the long-term success of the mining and resources sector in WA," CME Chief Executive Paul Everingham said.
"Projects around the State, which provide jobs for hundreds of thousands of Western Australians and so many community and economic benefits, all have to start somewhere - and that start is often exploration.
"As highlighted in today's announcement, the Nova nickel mine, the Tropicana gold mine, Gruyere and the Bellevue Gold Project have all originated from the Exploration Incentive Scheme.
"We look forward to this funding increase helping pave the way for future operations that will add to the $140 billion of projects currently in the WA mining and resources pipeline."
Applications for Round 24 of the EIS close at 4pm on Friday August 27.
The EIS offers up to a 50 per cent refund for innovative exploration drilling projects and modelling has shown every $1 invested in it has returned $31 to the State.
