BHP has announced the names of eight early-stage mineral exploration companies chosen from hundreds from around the world to participate in the 2025 Xplor accelerator program.
The Xplor program was established in 2023 to support promising minerals explorers to accelerate the exploration needed to support the energy transition.
Over the course of the six-month program, each of the companies will work collaboratively with BHP Xplor to expedite their geological concepts and position the projects for potential follow-on investment and partnership with BHP.
For BHP, Xplor provides an opportunity to access some of the most exciting exploration prospects globally, enhancing the pipeline of opportunities that could shape the company’s future asset portfolio.
“As the energy transition gathers pace it becomes more urgent that we can identify, develop and commercialize the discoveries required to support the transition,” BHP group exploration officer Tim O’Connor said.
“The 2025 Xplor cohort are the sorts of explorers that naturally embrace innovation in bringing promising new projects to life.
“We are excited to be partnering with them as part of BHP’s strategy to aid the energy transition.”
Companies selected for the 2025 program will receive an equity free grant of up to $US500,000 ($800,000) and access to a network of BHP and external industry experts to build out and accelerate their exploration concepts.
The eight successful applicants for Xplor 2025 are:
- Scout Discoveries – US
Scout Discoveries explores Idaho’s untapped mineral potential, leveraging a large technical team with extensive local expertise and two wholly owned core drills. Scout’s strategic approach involves advancing a curated portfolio of Tier 1-scale mineral projects, focusing on the discovery portion of the value curve. Key assets include Cuddy Mountain (porphyry copper) and Erickson Ridge (orogenic gold), among twelve other earlier stage precious and base metals projects generated by the team. - Orogen Royalties – US
Orogen is a royalty and mineral exploration company engaged in the business of royalty creation through prospect generation and acquisition. Orogen’s project generation business involves staking or acquiring prospective exploration targets through use of our proprietary data and boots-on-the-ground geoscience. With eight properties under option, six projects for sale or option, one exploration alliance and a portfolio of 27 royalties, Orogen strives to maximise investment returns while managing risks to create value sustainably. - Condor Prospecting – Argentina
Condor Prospecting is an exploration company which has been operating in Argentina since 2016 where it is focused on project generation and exploration for critical mineral resources for greener, cleaner energies. Committed to sustainability and community engagement, Condor holds multiple projects across Argentina and conducts exploration for various companies in Argentina. - Viridian Metals – Canada
A leader in pioneering generative metal exploration, Viridian Metals is dedicated to responsibly discovering and sourcing Labrador’s critical metal deposits, primarily copper. The company leverages innovative technologies to drive sustainability in energy-transition supply chains while fostering strong local and global partnerships to support the transition to ethically sourced metals for the energy sector. - DesertEx – Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is now recognised as a key emerging region for future facing commodity growth. To capitalise on the unique timing of this opportunity DesertEx was formed by a group of passionate and experienced explorers to evaluate the multi-commodity prospectivity of the country. - Electrum Discovery Corp – Serbia
Electrum Discovery is a Canadian-based mineral exploration and development company focused on copper and gold in the Western Tethyan Belt. The company holds a portfolio of projects in the Republic of Serbia, covering 645 km². Focus of the company is advancing exploration at its Timok East copper-gold project, and the expanding Novo Tlamino gold project, which hosts an inferred resource of 670,000 ounces of gold equivalent. - Firetail Resources – Peru
Firetail Resources is an Australian-based copper exploration company with a global footprint of battery and critical minerals, holding projects in Canada and Peru and Australia. The company is currently developing the Skyline project (VMS – copper-zinc-silver) in Newfoundland, Canada along with the Picha project (copper-silver) in south Peru, where the area is prospective for epithermal, stratabound, carbonate replacement and porphyry related styles of copper mineralisation. - GreenX Metals – Germany
GreenX aims to drive the green revolution through exploration and development of critical mineral resources. Focused on European copper, gold, and critical metal opportunities, GreenX is active in Germany and Greenland. In Germany, GreenX brings a mineral systems perspective to the search for the prolific Kupferschiefer-type sediment-hosted stratabound copper deposits.
“We were delighted with the strength of applications – the quality of exploration projects was extremely high,” BHP Xplor head Marley Palin said.
“The 2025 BHP Xplor cohort will be the most diverse geographic spread to date.
“We are excited to work with companies across Canada, the US, Serbia, Germany, Peru, Argentina and Saudi Arabia.
“Successful applicants demonstrated strong leadership, a commitment to innovation in their exploration programs, and a willingness to push industry boundaries in applying new concepts, data and testing techniques.”
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