Key resource opportunities

Victoria is a rich source of natural resources including critical minerals, base metals, gold, and oil and gas.

Critical minerals

Victoria has several of the world’s most in-demand critical minerals, including some of the highest economically demonstrated resources of ilmenite, rutile and zircon – with associated rare-earth elements  in mineral sand deposits in the northwest of the state.

Antimony is mined in central Victoria and the state has demonstrated resources of high purity alumina and copper, which is not strictly a critical mineral but a strategic input into the net-zero energy transition. Promising early-stage mineral exploration for other critical minerals - namely bismuth, indium, lithium, nickel, platinum group metals, rhenium, silicon, tin, tungsten and zinc - is also underway.

Find out more about critical minerals in Victoria.

Base metals

Base metal occurrences exist throughout the State of Victoria with particularly strong under cover prospectivity in the state’s northwest. Base metal ores present in Victoria contain relatively common metals such as copper, lead, zinc, molybdenum and nickel.

View the base metals fact sheet

Gold

Victoria has 13 goldfields that have each produced more than 1 Moz of gold, including one field of 22 Moz (Bendigo) and another of 12 Moz (Ballarat). Many of these old goldfields offer opportunities to reopen mines or find totally new deposits through modern exploration techniques.

Find out more about gold in Victoria

Oil and gas

Offshore Victoria is a world-renowned oil and gas province with potential opportunities for explorers in new areas or through farm-in, underpinned by world-class pre-competitive information and ready access to existing infrastructure and markets.

Find out more about oil and gas in Victoria

Page last updated: 13 Jun 2024