One of four categories in the 2019 MNN Awards, the explorer award recognises success in arguably the most important area of the mining sector.

The Explorer of the Year, sponsored by DDH1 Drilling, recognises a company and its leadership team for a significant new discovery made, or advanced to a meaningful status, during the 2018 financial year.

The discovery's importance is likely to be reflected in the value of the company but we are also assessing the in-ground value of a resource/reserve, using current commodity prices, and currencies, etc.

We are taking into consideration maiden resource(s)/reserve(s) reported during the 2016-2017 year, connected to ‘recent' discoveries, and will examine aspects of discoveries such as relative technical difficulty and magnitude of any technical success or breakthrough; the greenfields/brownfields nature of discovery; the extent of predecessor(s) work that might have contributed to new discovery; and the relative application of exploration funds.

The Explorer of the Year is an ASX-listed company, or a privately-owned company, exploring in Australia or offshore.

Last year's winner was successful Mongolian explorer Xanadu Mines.

You can nominate your own company, a client or just an explorer you admire.

Nominations close on June 28. The shortlist of finalists will be announced in early July and will be profiled throughout the month before the winners are announced in late July.