Friday, February 27, 2015

Arizona favorability rises in mining industry perceptions



The Fraser Institute’s 2014 survey ranking jurisdictions worldwide for their favorability for mining has just been released. 

“Since 1997, the Fraser Institute has conducted an annual survey of mining and exploration companies to assess how mineral endowments and public policy factors such as taxation and regulation affect exploration investment. Survey results now represent the opinions of executives and exploration managers in mining and mining consulting companies operating around the world. The survey includes data on 122 jurisdictions worldwide, on every continent except Antarctica, including sub-national jurisdictions in Canada, Australia, the United States, and Argentina.”

Arizona is ranked 18th in the world in investment attractiveness, moving up 4 places from last year (and 6th in the US).  We are down 4 places in Policy Perception (mostly due to federal land management is our understanding).    We jumped dramatically from 25th to 12th in Best Practices Mineral Potential.   We are ranked 20th in Current Mineral Potential, behind only Nevada and Wyoming in the US.

Comments about Arizona from respondents:
  • ·         Objections to in-situ copper mining at Florence.
  • ·         2+ years to receive drilling permit on US BLM mining claim.
  • ·         It was positive to have a joint industry-government conference to reduce the time required to process permit applications and implementation of regulations
I am delighted to report that Arizona moved up to the #2 rated US jurisdiction for our Geological Database compared to #6 last year.  That’s an area we at AZGS are working on aggressively, digitizing hundreds of thousands of pages of mining records for free online downloading.   A second table shows 52% of respondents gave top rating to Arizona's Quality of Geological Database (includes quality and scale of maps, ease of access to information, etc), exceeded in the US only by Wyoming at 54%.    No respondents identified Arizona's geological data as a significant deterrent to investment.



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