Report on China Mineral Resources 2015 was released recently on China Mining Congress & Expo. It shows that China has made breakthroughs in many fields as deepening our understanding of the resource potentials, enhancing the saving and comprehensive utilization of mineral resources, improving policies on mineral resources administration, and raising the level of geological survey.

In 2014, the geological survey investment has reached 114.5 million RMB, which lead to the discovery of 249 medium to large-scale mineral deposits. Significant breakthroughs have been made in the exploration of oil and gas resources, and the geological reserves of shale gas 106.8 billion cubic meters was first reported. The newly-discovered geological reserves of oil are 1.06 billion tons and those of natural gas reach 943.8 billion cubic meters. The potential evaluation of 25 major minerals shows the average discovery rate of mineral resources is 30.3%, indicating a huge prospecting potential. The potential of coal resources at depth shallow than 2,000m is 3.88 trillion tons, with a discovery rate of 29.6%. That of iron ore is 196.0 billion tons, with a discovery rate of 33.1%; copper 304 million tons, with a discovery rate of 29.5%; and bauxite 17.97 billion tons, with a discovery rate of 20.3%.

The standard for the indexes of evaluating the comprehensive utilization of mineral resources has been formulated and released. China has enacted the index requirements for the extract recovery rate, concentration recovery rate and comprehensive utilization rate of 20 minerals in three consecutive years and the evaluation index system for the conservation and comprehensive utilization of major mineral resources has been initially established. Besides, 159 recommended technologies have been popularized in three consecutive years. Furthermore, efforts have been made to propel the construction of pilot bases for the comprehensive utilization and the mine geological environment restoration projects of resource-exhausted cities and relevant demonstration projects. 661 mining enterprises have been selected in four batches to serve as the nation-level pilot entities for green mines.

Chinese government has revised the administrative regulations regarding the registration of exploration and exploitation, the transfer of exploration and mineral rights and so on, released the Administrative Regulations on Geological Environment Monitoring and the Administrative Penalty Measures on Land and Resources, cancelled 23 examinations and approvals pertaining to mineral resources.

Geological service further strengthened. By the end of 2014, onshore regional geological survey of 1:50,000 and regional geological revision of 1:250,000 has covered 31.7% and 61.7% the land area, respectively. The regional geological survey of 1:1,000,000 has covered the entire marine area under the jurisdiction of China for the first time. In 2014, over 170 wells have been explored and exploited, benefiting 300,000 people in water-deficient areas. The access for geo-data sharing and service platform reached 620,000 times and the national-level and the provincial-level geo-data entities provided data services for 130,000 times. The Cores and Samples Center of Land and Resources provided services for 5,646 person-times.

English Version: /UploadFiles/2015_10/30/China Mineral Resources 2015-English Version.pdf

Chinese version: /UploadFiles/2015_10/30/China Mineral Resources 2015-Chinese Version.pdf