The annual RIU Explorers Conference, held at the historic Esplanade Hotel in Fremantle, kicked off the 2025 Australian resources conference season this week. Having grown tremendously over the years, the hotel is now almost bursting at the seams with a good mix of junior mineral explorers showcasing their exploration targets, plans and results. White Noise was in attendance as the event unfolded, watching as investors and brokers chased the next big discovery in our land of wealth and toil to provide resources for the future.
It seems like a lifetime ago when this conference barely filled the main exhibition areas and the CVs of junior exploration company executives largely comprised WMC and/or BHP alumni. The growth of exhibitor participation is a testament to the longstanding and well-run event in the alluring port town, although helped along by the extensive and diversified mineral endowment of the country that drives our thriving resources exploration sector. We are also now seeing the next generation wave of executives and exploration hopefuls, with CV’s now often listing experience with the likes of IGO, Sandfire and Northern Star Resources.
The backdrop in financial markets during the conference included the RBA’s 25bps rate cut announcement on Tuesday, the XJO ASX/200 index drifting down 267.3 points (-3.12%) over the course of the week to Thursday’s close and the XMJ ASX200/materials index easing 291.3 points (-1.69%) over the same period with most of that pull back on Thursday. Gold reached an all-time high narrowly shy of US$3,000/oz and silver lifted back over US$30/oz.
Chatting to the RIU event organisers, company numbers and total delegates were down slightly on last year, however you wouldn’t have guessed it in the exhibition area where it was often shoulder to shoulder and nestled amongst a background of elevated chatter. While numbers may have been slightly below previous records, the number of red “Investor” tags were up on previous years. Several familiar faces from the east coast broker fraternity also made the journey west again this year.
Kicking off the event on day one, this year’s deserving nominees for the Craig Oliver Award included BCI Minerals, Ramelius Resources and Spartan Resources with Ramelius taking the cake to join such pedigrees as IGO, Sirius Resources, Northern Star Resources, Pilbara Minerals, De Grey Mining and last years’ winner, Azure Minerals.
Unsurprisingly, there was a dominant gold theme across the exhibitors with copper also a strong talking point. The vibe was generally upbeat with a more positive outlook ahead, although lithium is still a bridge too far for many at this point in the cycle and nickel was nowhere to be seen.
In an anecdotal sign of the times, the 400oz gold bar on guarded display at the ABC Refinery booth has a street value of approximately AUD$1.85 million at current gold prices. Interestingly, around the time Northern Star Resources took ownership of the Paulsens mine (now owned by Black Cat Syndicate), a move that kicked off the Company’s formidable gold producer status, that same bar was worth only circa AUD$600,000.
With a long list of companies presenting each day, it was pleasing to see the program ran on schedule and audience stamina was solid with good numbers remaining deep into the late afternoon sessions. The exhibition area wasn’t short on numbers either and not just around the coffee stands and during the meal breaks. Recent changes to the exhibition stand layout plus the addition of tv screens outside the plenary showing upcoming presentations were useful improvements from prior years. We understand there is an extensive hotel refurbishment planned shortly and can’t wait to see what it looks like next year.
The Marine Lounge Bar was equally well attended by mid-afternoon onwards despite long wait times for service and/or fresh pint glasses at times. In its defence, this year’s event was only the hotel’s 24th rodeo… Regardless, it didn’t dampen the beloved new year “networking” aspect of the conference.
As expected, the 2025 edition of the RIU Explorers Conference was a hit once again, with an upbeat and jovial vibe well attended by both companies and investors. Assisted by record high gold prices, improving sentiment across the exploration sector has continued into the new year and the pickup in activity was evident.
With the Australian resources conference season opener now behind us, companies can get back to drilling holes in the ground in the hope of making the next big discovery.
