Exploration reporting guidelines

This page contains information for exploration, retention and mining licence holders when reporting on exploration activities according to the Mineral Resources (Sustainable Development) Act 1990.

Download the complete reporting guide

These guidelines detail the requirements of the technical report and provide additional prescription for digital data above that detailed in the Australian Requirements for the Submission of Digital Exploration Data (for example, with respect to combined reporting).

The national standards are developed by the Government Geoscience Information Committee (GGIC) on instructions of the Geoscience Working Group, a subcommittee of the Council of Australian Governments Energy Council (COAG Energy Council).

Summary of reporting requirements

Technical report of exploration – Annual and final (Regulation 57)

1. The technical report presents the technical results and geological interpretation of exploration during the reporting period. The report should include data and any consultant or laboratory reports as appendices. Section 2 of the guidelines presents the requirements for the technical report.
2. A technical report is required for all exploration, retention licences and for mining licences of more than 5 hectares where exploration expenditure has been claimed (including office studies).
3. A technical report must be submitted within 28 days after the annual reporting date of the licence AND within 28 days after the licence has ceased to exist (expired, surrendered, cancelled or not renewed).
4. A technical report may cover more than one licence belonging to a licensee if together the licences make a discrete exploration project and boundaries are adjoining. (Updated Regulation 57(2)). The licences must also have the same reporting date.
5. Partial relinquishment reports are required as areas are relinquished. These reports will provide details of all the work conducted within the relinquished area, from the grant of the title to the time of relinquishment.
6. If the technical report is a final report, that is, prepared after the licence has ceased to exist, it should cover all the work done since the last report. If the licence has been joint reported the final report should be a summary of the all the work done over the life of the licence and include the reason the licence was allowed to expire or is being surrendered. It must include any previously unsubmitted data.
7. Submit your technical report as a digital .pdf document (with exploration data in tab delimited ASCII format).

Annual expenditure and activities return (Regulations 54-56)

8. The expenditure and activities return lists the expenditure for the reporting year against a summary of operations.
9. An expenditure and activities return must be submitted within 28 days after the annual reporting date of the licence.
10. One expenditure and activity return per licence must be submitted.

Lodgement of technical report of exploration and expenditure and activities return

11. Your technical report of exploration and expenditure and activity return is to be lodged via the Resource Rights Allocation Management electronic system (RRAM). If you need assistance with your username and password please contact rram.support@deeca.vic.gov.au.

Reporting date

12. The reporting date for exploration licences and retention licences may be one of the following dates as selected on the licence application form:
    • 31 March
    • 30 June
    • 30 September
    • 31 December.

The reporting date is shown on the licence document.

The reporting date for mining licences and prospecting licences is 30 June.

Electronic text and data submission

13. Technical reports are to be submitted as pdf documents, with digital exploration data files attached as one zip file. Please contact the tenement geologist email (gsv.mineraltenements@deeca.vic.gov.au) for submission of any data that exceeds the RRAM upload capacity.

All digital data will become available for future public release according to legislation. Software can be downloaded from the link below to aid in the preparation of digital data for submission.

Minerals Reporting Template (MRT) process

14. Licensee downloads the MRT software from the departmental website onto their PC
15. Licensee enters raw exploration data into spreadsheets (or tab-delimited data files)
16. Licensee uses the MRT Software to
    • record information (metadata) about the exploration project and about their data
    • generate tab-delimited data files in the format expected by the department
    • generate a list of ALL the files that go to make up the report
17. Licensee submits the report files, the generated tab-delimited data files and the list of files to the department with their technical report.

MRT software download

Please note: The MRT software will need to be unzipped after downloading to your computer.

This application requires .net 4 to run, please note if there is no .net 4 framework installed on your computer, the setup will download it from the internet and may take some time to finish the setup.

Page last updated: 16 Apr 2024