The Tasmanian Opposition is alarmed by a sharp drop in mineral exploration, as the state's biggest iron ore miner posts an $80 million loss for the six months to July.

Grange Resources, which owns the Savage River mine on the state's west coast, has put the loss down to lower than forecast iron ore prices and has not ruled out job losses.

The loss comes as the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show investment in mineral exploration in Tasmania has dropped 44 per cent in the last 18 months.

Deputy Premier Jeremy Rockliff said he was not concerned about the future of the Savage River mine and he was talking up the Government's minerals investment attraction program.

"We recognise the global circumstances, that requires innovate solutions, being very proactive, selling the opportunities available in Tasmania of which there are a number," he said.

"What you're seeing in terms of mineral exploration and investment trend in Tasmania is reflected and consistent with those figures nationally."

Labor Leader Bryan Green said the Government's program was not working.

"Other states like Victoria, their exploration dollar is increasing, here in Tasmania it's going backwards," he said.

The Minerals and Energy Council's Wayne Bould said Grange was not the only mid-size company hurting.

"All small to medium mining companies would be suffering at the moment," he said.

"That's evidenced not just across Tasmania but across the nation in terms of their falling share price, their inability to raise more capital to develop further and just a standard initiative amongst all of them, [they have] to cut costs as hard as they can to remain competitive on the international market."

Cause for optimism despite losses, Grange says

Grange's general manager of operations, Ben Maynard, said despite the result there was room for optimism.

"The highlight for us is that we actually posted an underlying profit of about $33 million for the half," he said.

"Largely the loss is a result of the impairment and that's down to really a formulaic calculation that we have to make as a company.

"The Savage River operation ... is going very well, we're seeing great production results, we're seeing good movements and good ore supply.

"We're producing at record operational rates through our concentrator. We're producing a high quality project and we're doing it safely."

But he said falling iron ore prices were having an impact and while the company was not planning any major job cuts, the possibility could not be ruled out.

"We need to keep producing and we need people and operators to keep doing that," he said.

"For us, we're going to hunker down, we're going to continue to produce, we'll continue to optimise our business and run as efficiently as we can and I think that'll place us in good stead to ride out whatever comes.

"It's certainly putting pressure on. This is one we continue to watch day-in, day-out. There's a lot of speculation out there as to where the market is going to go and there're a lot of complicated things that influence that.

"We will continue to do what we can to maintain our costs under control to make sure we stay in that sort of position.

"We are working hard to improve our efficiency, we continue to invest in major capital works."