The top 10 low risk countries were: Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, United States, Botswana,
New Zealand, Finland, Greenland, and Namibia and Australia tied in tenth place.
The 2015 World Risk Survey canvassed the entire Aspermont mining and exploration database and this year returned a record number of complete responses, which included a great deal of candid insight from senior industry participants.
The resulting top 10 destinations for exploration and mining investment reflected the trend of the past three years, where companies have refocused their investment dollars in "old world" destinations with stable democracies, predictable policy and legal settings, and some remaining prospectivity for performing commodities.
The country that came out on top of this year's survey was Sweden, having improved its ranking as an investment destination in the eyes of survey respondents from its runner-up achievement in the 2014 World Risk Survey.
Sweden achieved the lowest total risk score of 14.20 (see table for comparison) of the 69 countries that received a statistically acceptable number complete survey responses.
However, despite taking the honours for 2015, the total score represented a slight slip from its second place score in 2014 of 12.97. Last year's winner, Norway, achieved a total score of 12.45 in 2014, but slipped to third place in this year's survey with a total score of 15.43.
The year-on-year results reflect an overall deterioration in risk sentiment for exploration and mining investment globally, which will not come as a surprise to most industry insiders.
The top 10 low risk countries were: Sweden, United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, United States, Botswana, New Zealand, Finland, Greenland, and Namibia and Australia tied in tenth place.
After falling out of the top 10 countries for the first time in the survey's 23 year history last year, Australia managed to re-enter the winners' list this year, albeit just, achieving equal tenth with Namibia on a total score of 17.58.
Botswana has long been one of the most desirable exploration locations for Australian juniors in the past 10 years and this sentiment has stood-up again this year, with the sub-Saharan country improving three places to sixth with a score of 16.02.
The stand-out of the African destinations last year, Namibia slid down the table considerably from an over-achieving third place in 2014 to a - worrying for Australia - equal tenth.
The first past the post for Latin America was one of Australia's less controversial free trade partners Chile, which slipped just outside of the top 10 to sit in a respectable eleventh place on 17.93.
So, following the run-of-race above, what was it that drove Sweden to victory this year - well, according to commentary from respondents, it was unsurprisingly linked to "easy access to mine site suppliers and consultancies as well as a well-established financial community".
Breaking down Sweden's result, it was the only country to achieve a score starting with a one in each of the 11 risk categories measured, with its lowest (and therefore best) scores achieved in the areas of infrastructure, labour relations, social risk, civil unrest and natural disasters, which fits quite comfortably with the commentary provided from those with operational experience in the country.
Its worst scores, although still relatively competitive with comparable countries, were in the areas of red and green tape - undoubtedly a symptom of a sophisticated modern democracy.
As well as being home to some of the Globe's largest mining-related original equipment manufacturers - read Atlas Copco and Sandvik - there is a growing amount of interest and activity in the country's exploration and mining potential across a variety of commodities.
Among the crop of Australian-listed resources companies with projects in Sweden are Talga Resources, Dragon Mining, Avalon Minerals, Hannans Reward and Boss Resources to name a few.
Talga is looking outside the square with its Vittangi graphite project in Sweden, having started building a graphite-to-graphene demonstration plant in Germany, with the phase one plant using 10kg slabs of ore from previous mining programs in Sweden.
Dragon produced 14,355 ounces gold for June quarter this year at a C1 cost of $US943 ($A1289) an ounce from its operations in Sweden and Finland.
The company has enjoyed continual recovery improvements at the Vammala plant in Finland and lower refining costs from the processing of concentrate from the Jokisivu mine at the Svartliden centre in Sweden.
Avalon Minerals has intersected more high-grade copper recently during drilling at its Viscaria project in Sweden. Assays from the D zone of the project include 21.8m at 1.4% copper from 471.2m; 7.4m at 1.9% from 471.7m; and 6.5m at 1.5% from 486m within the same hole.
Former Kalgoorlie junior Hannans Reward enjoyed a significant boost in its share price a while back as a result of substantial copper assays reported from drilling at its Pahtohavare copper-gold project in Sweden. Mineralisation was intersected across two distinct zones in the first diamond drill hole carried out at the project's central deposit under a joint venture agreement with Swedish miner Lovisagruvan AB.
Another junior wanting to take a pass at Sweden is Boss Resources, who set out to raise about $A3.3 million recently through a two-for-five non-renounceable rights issue at 1.5c per share, with funds set to be used for the acquisition of the Honeymoon uranium project in South Australia and on exploring nickel-copper projects in Sweden, Finland and Norway.
One of the reasons for the advance of North American and European countries up the World Risk Survey rankings was "due to liaison and co-operation with business partners, product development and acceptance", according to a respondent.
Most believed that the United States and Canada remained stable in terms of location risk, while financial and safety risk had diminished in certain jurisdictions for operations.
The sentiment of commentary around Australia's overall performance was more mixed, with some suggesting the outlook had worsened and others indicating it had proved a safe haven to return to for "vanilla" exploration projects in a time when capital was tight.
"Australia's risk profile improved with it being a lower cost and safer jurisdiction," was an example of some positive feedback, as was "it is a stable environment, although capital much tighter now" and "Australia decreased due to negative cost pressures and availability of better labour".
"Australia worsened due to registration and procurement protocols and processes becoming increasingly more complex, and more stringent OHS Acts and regulations," was a differing view, while "bureaucratic impediments and delays have made it harder to get things done in timely and cost-effective manner", shared a similar sentiment.
A number of respondents told us that Chile was now a "higher risk country for the minerals industry due to government actions and NGO activity".
"Chile has worsened due to the new government, tougher environmental restrictions and more community protests," echoed the above view.
Risks in Africa, and in particular West Africa, were perceived to have increased due to the Ebola outbreak and some regional political issues.
Despite this, a selection of respondents said their local operating environment in Africa had "generally improved", with "more projects being commissioned in the African space".
The survey tested the water this year with respondents on what they believed to be the top reasonably high risk, but potentially high reward destinations based on what the country's government had proactively done to attract activity through implementing favourable fiscal regimes.
The top 10 destinations, according to total number of responses, for favourable fiscal regimes were Botswana, Peru, Chile, Namibia, Tanzania, Mongolia, Papua New Guinea, Brazil and Burkina Faso.
To round out this year's results, Pakistan - despite the outstanding efforts of Australian resource policy, foreign direct investment and political risk adviser Colin Roberts in helping them develop some plausible exploration and mining policies - was again relegated to last place on the main table, below Iran and Venezuela, with a poor result of 27.31.
There is also more bad news for the South Asian country, after it appears from the survey results that the investment landscape has further deteriorated in Pakistan based on the country's slightly better last place score in 2014 of 24.46.
