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Miners drilled on 364 separate projects in March, down 5% from February but up 139% versus March 2020 and up 26% from the pre-pandemic peak in January 2020.
Of that figure, 250 were gold projects and 21 related to silver.
Copper prices tipping US$9000/tonne sparked drilling on 47 copper projects in the month, the highest level of exploration activity relating to the red metal since 2012.
The best copper drill result came courtesy of Solaris Resources' Warintza project in Ecuador, which hit 922m at 0.79% copper.
Filo Mining Corp hit 942m a 0.42% copper, 0.32g/t gold and 2.2g/t silver at its Filo del Sol prefeasibility project in Argentina.
Analysts at US investment bank Stifel said the S&P data showed the mineral exploration sector was in "rude health".
