The Yukon Chamber of Mines is predicting another record year for mineral exploration in the territory.

Results of the chamber's annual survey were released this morning.

They peg hard rock exploration expenditures this year at $108.5 million, or about $28 million more than last year.

The survey predicts another $66 million spent on the development of existing properties, such as the new Minto mine.

'It's a good forecast, and we think it is a bit conservative,' John Witham, president of the chamber, told the Star.

The chamber conducts the survey every year by talking directly to the companies doing the work in the Yukon.

The figures, said Witham, come straight from what companies expect to spend. They do not include any additional activity that might be spurred by promising new finds and such.

And with that many people in the field, he noted, there's a significant likelihood of a new and robust discovery.

Witham said the strong commodity prices for minerals world-wide is by far the primary driver behind increasing expenditures.

Also contributing to the equation, he added, is a stable work environment within Canada, compared to other war-torn regions; a Yukon where there is plenty of ground still unexplored; a huge promotion campaign by the territorial government; 11 land claim settlements; and an increasingly friendly regulatory system.

Witham said you take all those considerations, and you can see why exploration expenditures in the Yukon have jumped proportionally higher than anywhere else in the country.

All the provinces and territories have seen increases, but nothing like the percentage seen here, he said.

Witham estimates that of the $108 million in exploration, 50 per cent will be spent looking for base metals such as lead and zine, 30 per cent will be spent on strategic metals like tungsten and uranium and 20 per cent on the search for gold, silver and other precious metals.

Exploration for tungsten and uranium will be big this year because of how the price has skyrocketed because of diminishing world supplies, he said.

'Those metals will be targeted probably to the tune of 30 per cent of the dollars spent in the Yukon this year.

'The other big one is copper,' Witham added. 'There is literally a dearth of copper on the open market.'

Of the $66 million spent on developing existing mineral properties, approximately $25 million will be spent by Sherwood Copper at its Minto mine, he said.

The remaining $41 million in development spending will be spread around a handful of advanced projects, including work by Alexco at the revitalized United Keno Hill silver mines; by Yukon Zinc Corp. at its Wolverine zine property and by Tagish Lake Gold at Skukum Creek gold and silver mine in the Wheaton River Valley.

When the Minto mine fired up its mill to begin test production last week, it became the first hard rock mine to be in production since the Brewery Creek gold mine shut down in 2002.

Exploration in the Yukon hit record levels in the mid-1990s amid the staking rush in the Finlayson Lake area, when expenditures hit $56 million in 1996.

But exploration expenditures dropped like a stone until they hit $6 million in 2002, but began to climb slowly until skyrocketing in the last three years.