“A lot of miners are now looking at valuations on their mineral rights so that’s going to be one of the key aspects of this new regime,” he told ILN.

He also outlined some of the problem areas that still exist.

“You still don’t get a deduction for your financing costs, and any other cost but that, to a large extent, had been addressed through the more generous transitional arrangements.”

On these arrangements, which include lowering the tax rate from 40% to 30% and the 25% extraction allowance, Lee said he did not know why the government did not simply lower the rate to 22.5% – the net effect after the extraction allowance kicks in.

“Under the RSPT there was potentially an initial cash flow advantage in that the government was going to refund royalties, to the extent that the RSPT was lower in terms of tax take compared to the royalty take,” Lee said.

“So the government now has removed that refundability so that will probably impact cash flow for those companies that were thinking that they were going to be in positive cash flow during their early years of operation under these new rules.”

With the juniors, he said the obvious disadvantage of the MRRT was the removal of the exploration rebate which would have helped the marginal projects.

The MRRT is expected to rake in $10.5 billion of revenue during the first two years once it kicks in during mid-2012, compared to the $12 billion expected from the resources super-profits tax.

The lower tax revenue expectation, despite the concessions made, is creating some scepticism in various quarters.

But the RSPT was also expected to rake in $3 billion during the first year of its implementation, before jumping to $9 billion the year after.

Total resource royalties are forecast to contribute $3.24 billion to Queensland this financial year.

Mining royalties are expected to put $1.77 billion into the coffers of the New South Wales government in the 2010-11 financial year.