PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The South Australian government has launched a new Plan for Accelerating Exploration (Pace) in the hope of allowing South Australian companies to tap into more than A$250-billion worth of mining projects around the world.

Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Pace Supply Chain Development programme would create up to 200 jobs over the next three years.

“This programme will support South Australian companies to connect and build relationships with large international resource and tier-one companies,” Koutsantonis said.

“In South Australia there are some A$7-billion of mining projects at the feasibility stage, in Australia some A$80-billion, but internationally there is the potential to tap into more than A$250-billion.

“We need to build the competitiveness of South Australian companies so they can position themselves as globally relevant and able to export their products and services to resource and energy companies around the world.”

Koutsantonis said that up to 40 companies would be supported to focus on their export readiness and business development capabilities so they could meet the supply and procurement demands of local and international mining and energy projects.

Furthermore, 20 non-mineral and energy suppliers would be supported to diversify into the minerals and energy resources sector.

Stage 1 of the new Pace programme would identify the companies wanting to access the resource sector for the first time, with a series of roundtables and industry seminars to build market intelligence.

Stage 2 would aim to strengthen capability by looking at how a company’s business model might be improved or enhanced to help it extract more value from the products or services it provides, while Stage 3 would connect those companies that display technical and commercial capability to industry-specific mentors. 


“A mentor will identify projects that meet these companies’ capabilities and capacity, and guide and introduce them to key contacts within a target company,” Koutsantonis said.

The programme would be delivered through collaboration between Resources and Engineering Skills Alliance, Austmine and the Department of State Development, and would build on already established international partnerships the state government has cultivated with Sweden, China, Canada and Chile.

The Pace Supply Chain Development programme linked directly with the state government’s economic priority to unlock the full potential of South Australia’s resources, energy and renewable assets.

Since its inception more than ten years ago, Pace had made a significant contribution to the resources sector, including providing an extra A$2.4-billion in mineral production, an extra A$700-million in private mineral exploration expenditure and 15 significant exploration successes from collaborative drilling.

The announcement of the new Pace programme followed the launch of the Pace Copper earlier this week, under which the state government would invest A$20-million to deliver the world’s largest high-resolution, airborne geophysical and terrain imaging programme to encourage further exploration and investment in South Australia’s copper belt.

It aimed to generate more than A$400-million in private mineral exploration return for the state and create and retain up to 1 000 direct and indirect jobs within the minerals industry and services sector.