Judul : In global race for critical minerals, China identifies dozens of new reserves
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In global race for critical minerals, China identifies dozens of new reserves
Deposit in Hunan province has an estimated 490 million tonnes of lithium ore and 1.31 million tonnes of lithium oxide, report says China identified 38 new sites of mineral reserves in the first half of this year, discoveries that are expected to help the country meet its resource security goals.
The Ministry of Natural Resources said on Thursday that the number of new mineral sites increased 31 per cent year on year during the period, and included the discovery of reserves with an estimated 3.37 million tonnes of rubidium and 81 tonnes of gold.
Rubidium is used in biomedicine, telecommunication systems, pyrotechnics and specialty glass, and gold is used, among other things, in the development of electronics and aerospace components.
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In the first six months, China's investment in mineral exploration rose more than half from a year earlier including in tin, bauxite, tungsten, copper and phosphate - all of which are critical elements in the aerospace, semiconductor and green energy industries.
Investment in non-hydrocarbon mineral exploration grew rapidly - up 23.9 per cent year on year to 6.69 billion yuan (US$932 million).
"[We] will improve basic geological work and advance strategic prospecting to further strengthen ... national energy and mineral resource security," said Niu Li, deputy director of the ministry's geological exploration department.
Mineral reserves are vital to Beijing's national strategic planning, industrial development and energy transition, and while they are diverse in China, they are unevenly distributed. With substantial domestic demand, the country is highly dependent on external supplies of certain critical metals, notably iron ore.
In 2011, the State Council, China's cabinet, approved a plan to expand resource exploration, particularly in minerals used in energy, bulk commodities and strategic emerging minerals. The ministry said that those national efforts had resulted in advances in exploration technology, extraction methods and equipment innovation.
The ministry said China had met the exploration targets for most mineral types ahead of schedule under the five-year plan for 2021-2025.
One of the most recent discoveries is a super-large altered granite-type lithium deposit in the Jijiaoshan mining area in the central province of Hunan province. The site had an estimated 490 million tonnes of lithium ore and 1.31 million tonnes of lithium oxide, according to Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily.
The report quoted Hunan's natural resource department as saying the deposit held medium-to-large scale reserves of strategic by-product minerals, including rubidium, tungsten, tin, niobium and tantalum.
In January, China discovered a 2,800km world-class spodumene-type lithium metallogenic belt in the Kunlun Mountains region in western China. Verified resources exceeded 6.5 million tonnes, with total potential estimated at over 30 million tonnes, state news agency Xinhua reported.
Dubbed "white petroleum", lithium is a critical element in emerging industries such as electric vehicles and advanced energy storage systems.
China is the world's second-biggest holder of lithium reserves, with about 16.5 per cent of the global total.
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This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (www.scmp.com), the leading news media reporting on China and Asia.
Copyright (c) 2025. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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