Juniors are extremely important to major mining companies because they are the firms finding the deposits that will become the next mines. In this way, juniors help the majors to replace the ore that they are constantly depleting in their operating mines. Put another way, juniors find the resources for majors to turn into mineable reserves.
Financings/ capex drying up
One source points out that senior miners have been allocating a relatively small portion of their revenues to exploration spending, with most expenditures invested in developing existing mines and measures to reduce operating costs.
If the seniors aren’t exploring, and when was the last time you heard of a major mining company making a greenfields discovery, it falls to the juniors. But junior mining financing has pretty much dried up; global exploration budgets in 2021 were half of what they were in 2012.
Capital expenditures in mining fell from approximately $260…
