Understanding New Resource Projects

The surge in new resource projects has been a prominent feature of the recent strong performance of the Australian economy, with mining and energy investment accounting for almost one-half of all private investment. Although the current round of resource investment has now peaked, as resource cycles tend to repeat themselves, there is an ongoing need to carefully understand the available information sources. In this paper we (i) analyse the factors determining the generation of projects; (ii) investigate cost escalation as projects progress through the investment pipeline, from the initial planning stages to completion; and (iii) use a specially developed panel of matched projects from three widely followed, but under-researched, data sources to analyse the biases, the degree of independence and timeliness of each source. This information is of use to policy makers who have to closely monitor these developments, to analysts following the resources sector, and to project proponents wanting to identify projects most likely to succeed and to know the typical cost profile of a project.